“When we convince the Arabs we don't need the oil,” he said, “the price will go down. Then the oil companies on our side of the river will go back in competition. Right now they don't have no competition. It's just like McDonalds. If they didn't have competition, a hamburger would cost two dollars.”  Well, Digger O'Dell never traveled as an economist. But he does know a little something about getting buried. That's why he was brooking no interference this morning from John Suhr, a lanky advertising man who said he had a feel for show biz ever since he got a bit part in “Kiss of the Tarantula,” a low‐budget movie filmed across the river in nearby Columbus, Ga.  “Have you got a dark suit with you?” asked Mr. Suhr, puffing contemplatively on a big briar pipe. It is Mr. Suhr's job to film commercials for Mack's Mobile Homes. “I'm thinking it might look better than the robe and pajamas,” he said. “We could put a flower in your lapel. I want it to look funeral‐like.”  Peeved, Mr. Smith turned his attention from the electrician wiring his coffin. “No,” he snapped. “I got to have my robe.”  “You could change down there after you're buried,” Mr. Suhr persisted.  ‘One Inch to Run Around In’  “No room,” said the Digger. He offered a discourse on graves for living. “It's 32 inches across and 32 inches high and six feet long. I'm five‐eleven. I got one inch to run around in.”  In such quarters, equipped with a 60 gallon chemical toilet and a periscope through which the curious may view him, Digger O'Dell once stayed underground 79 days — a world record, he claims. (The Digger apparently is oblivious to competition. The world record for voluntary burial alive, say the Guinness people, is 217 days, 37 minutes.)  Mr. Suhr's talk of show business moved the Digger to reflect that his branch of the business is dying. In his heyday, he could knock down $15,000 for a 60‐day burial. Down here, said one of Mr. Suhr's associates, the Digger will be reduced to taking his expense money from the “wishing well” set up to receive contributions for Mr. Hornsby's favorite local charity.  “Back in the old days,” Mr. Smith explained wistfully, “there wasn't any place to go or anything to do but come see somebody like me. But this younger generation will travel 200 miles just to see a rock group.”  Even as late as 1971, however, the Digger's big ideas could still create a stir in these parts. He welded himself inside a car to protest the court‐martial of Lieut. William Calley and drove up to Atlanta to call on Mr. Carter, then Governor of Georgia. Mr. Carter came out to the curb, trailing a covey of reporters, “shook my hand, and said he would do everything he could to help Mr. Calley,” Mr. Smith recalled. “He treated me like a brother.”  But that glad day was before the gruesome event that started the Digger's retreat into the identity of Herbert 0. Smith, tomato farmer. His second wife, Lena, was a woman who knew how to draw the crowds to “World Famous Digger O'Dell's Farmer's Market,” which was just five miles from here. It was her inspiration, for instance, to buy Elvis Presley's first Cadillac and put it in the parking lot for the customers to rub. While the Digger was away selling watermelons, she died of a heart attack in a house full of dogs and cats, who mutilated her body horribly. The Digger's own heart, he said, broke like a clod of dirt.  “I still can't even look up there without getting upset,” said Mr. Smith, “but in a way I'm glad I've come home for my last exhibition for a cause I believe in.”  Sure enough, when Mr. Smith looked up Highway 280, his eyes misted over, and he wasn't feeling a lot perkier by 3 P.M., when the disc jockeys from WRCG arrived to broadcast the interment. At the last minute, Mack Hornsby's lawyer dashed up with the release forms stating that if Herbert O'Dell Smith died while buried, it wouldn't be Mr. Hornsby's fault.  Mr. Smith climbed down an aluminum ladder. He handed up the red rayon bathrobe that Mr. Suhr had tried to talk him out of wearing. He signed the release in triplicate. He picked up a microphone and addressed the crowd of 75 gathered at the chain‐link fence donated by one of Mr. Hornsby's subcontractors. “Friends,” he said, “this is Digger O'Dell; or what's left of him.”  We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.  A version of this archives appears in print on June 3, 1979, on page 26 of the New York edition with the headline: Aging Stunt Man Takes to Grave for Penultimate Repose. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Digger O'Dell, who has buried himself as a stunt 157 times in his 63 years, buries himself once again in Phenix City, Ala, and says he will not come out of his 'grave' until gasoline prices go down; career reviewed; illus (M)