Tom Murray at Main Line Life turns out an editorial that is simply fabulous this week. It's about the Barnes, or more specifically, honoring the wishes of the late Dr. Barnes. Tom takes a topic that we all discuss in Lower Merion and makes it even more personal - it isn't just about The City of Philadelphia stealing our art collection or just about the scum sucking philanthropists who live on the Main Line and give on the Main Line yet are helping facilitate the stealing of the art collection to a morally bankrupt, financially irresponsible, crime and scandal ridden city....it's about honoring the wishes of the dead.

Tom, we love this editorial. And if you are really good, we'll give you a crash course in art history....seriously, even guys guys can get it - no worries we won't have you taking ballet next...LOL....but seriously folks, read this editorial..reprinted courtesy of Tom Murray and Main Line Life newspaper:

It's about a man's wish, not about the art
By Tom Murray

There's a standard joke between my wife and me that we laugh about, but one we both take very seriously.It goes something like this: If I should die before she does, she's going to pack a lunch and come visit me at the cemetery. Maybe I'll get one of those little benches you see at gravesites.

And if she should go first, every morning when I put on the television or in the winter when I light our fake fireplace, I will say hello because that's where her urn with her ashes will be.

It makes us smile when we talk about it, but we both take it seriously because we both promised to honor each other's wishes.

In a nutshell, she wants to be burned and I want to be put in the ground.

I don't want to speak for her, but ever since I can remember, I told my wife that when the day finally comes when I go to the big newspaper in the sky, I want to be buried.

I can't explain why I'm the only one in my family - including my parents, that does not want to be cremated. But these are my final wishes.

So what do my final wishes have to do with the Main Line and where am I going with this?

If you guessed the controversy over Albert C. Barnes and the decision by the Barnes Foundation to move his work from Merion to Philadelphia, you get a free lunch with my wife at my gravesite.

While I touched briefly on the topic in my two years here at Main Line Life, I have never given my opinion on the topic because I have never been to the Barnes Museum.

And with all due respect to the people fighting to keep his work on the Main Line and the hundreds of artist-types I have met on the Main Line, I have no plans for going in the near future.

I know it sounds shortsighted and I'm told that it's one of the places you need to see before you die (there seems to be a theme here), but I would rather see Fenway Park in Boston or Lambeau Field in Green Bay, before the Barnes Museum.

Hey, that's why they make apples and oranges.

I have been reluctant to voice my opinion because I don't know the difference between Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, and I can't hold my own in a conversation about Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir or Modigliani.

Get me on the topic of Schmidt, Carlton and the 1980 Phillies, or Randall, Reggie and the 1990 Eagles, and I could talk for hours.

Or ask me my opinion on who the Republican or Democratic candidate for president will be next year or who my favorite congressman is, and I will give you my thoughts.

Once again, that's why they make apples and oranges.

But as I was reading the latest story about the ongoing saga and how the Barnes Foundation rejected a funding proposal by Montgomery County to keep the historic art collection on the Main Line, it hit me that this controversy has nothing to do with paintings by Picasso or Renoir.

This has something to do with one man's wishes.

The one constant during this entire ordeal has been the fact that Barnes wanted his art collection to stay in Merion.

In my two years here and the thousands of inches of type we have given on the topic, you always get the feeling that if Barnes were here today, he would be against moving his collection to a new place in Philadelphia.

And that's why I finally decided to end my silence on the topic and admit to my ignorance when it comes to the arts.

While I may not know the difference between a Picasso or Renoir, I do know that when you give someone you word, you stand by it.

As this fight continues and I feel that something needs to be said, I vow to be there for the people fighting to keep the Barnes in Lower Merion.

My wife can rest her mind knowing I won't bury her. I gave her my word. And more importantly, I know my wishes will be carried out because she gave me her word.

It's a real shame that Albert Barnes didn't have my wife or me around when he made his final wishes.

Tom Murray is Managing Editor of Main Line Life. He can be reached at