MUSKEGON, Mich. — A hand of euchre. A summer scene with stick figures and a pair of dogs. Even the Flintstones — Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm — have been carved into a headstone by Brooks Wheeler.
The longtime owner of Muskegon Monument and Stone Co. has seen, sketched and stenciled it all by hand, recently finishing the front side of his own headstone, a work which he started in his historic shop seven years ago.
"I was procrastinating, which is easy, but I got it done," Wheeler said. "Dude, I can't have somebody else make my stone. It wouldn't be done right."
The headstone's primary feature is Wheeler himself, wearing a 'Big Fish Brooksy' hat and holding a trophy pike.
"Obviously, I'm Big Fish Brooksy," Wheeler said, referring to his radio personality on WGHN-FM in Grand Haven where he weekly provides an inland fishing report. "Love to fish."
Below him and his pike are smaller engravings of his wife, who rides atop a camel, and his daughter, who hoists up a catfish. When the headstone stands on its mount, its as tall as 5'11" Wheeler.
"You're going to be able to read that forever," said Wheeler, who boasts of both the quality of his materials and labor. "You can't find anybody like me."
When a customer comes into his century-old shop with an order, he draws a sketch to their specification and then uses an X-acto knife to hand-cut a stencil. Wheeler says he can spot a computer-cut one "from a mile away."
Despite dealing with death on a daily basis — especially during the pandemic, when fears of contracting COVID-19 led to a run on headstones and a shortage of stencils and stone — Wheeler says it doesn't weigh on him too much.
"I'm helping people," he said.
Wheeler's work isn't as much about the loss of life, but the preservation of it.
"All the stuff I do is history," he said. "If you can't read it, it's not good. "If you vandalize it, don't even talk to me."
