Memorial Day

This year Becky and I spent much of Memorial Day in cemeteries. What
could be more natural.....right?

Right.

There was a time in early to mid American urban history when spending
Sunday afternoons in a cemetery with the family (in clement weather)
was not only seen as adhering to social, familial and religious norms,
it was also the closest that many could get (a short walk or trolley
ride) to what is today regarded as outdoor recreation/relaxation.
After six grueling days in a packing plant, shirt-waist factory,
counting house or steel mill, a quiet, mild afternoon in a sylvan
setting (however artificial) was greeted by tens of thousands as a
blessing worthy of hallowed ground. The owners of the cemeteries,
somewhat more prosaic in their outlook perhaps, soon started charging
admission for those who had no dead relatives as long term residents.
All this before F.L. Olmstead, et al., etc. Then, as now, and before,
and always and ever after, rich people's dead people get treated
better than poor people's live people.....but that's a whole nother
rant.

In any case, since the advent of publicly owned public parks (how did
THAT **** ever slip through the cracks?) people have come and gone
(well, that's the difference between the quick and the dead) in
cemeteries pretty much at will (ditto) and free of cost (well, this
part CAN get complicated). Becky and I come and go pretty much as we
please.....and nobody seems to care.....and we like that part.

So, Memorial Day.....well, actually, let's start three days
earlier.....

On Friday, the 28th, I had reason to pass through the veterans'
cemetery at Wood, Wi. The place was alive (if you'll pardon the
pun.....or even if you won't) with people busily planting a little
flag (a shiny new nickel to the first person to guess which flag) at
each headstone.....even those that said, on the back, "his wife."
Um.....o.k., thinks I, cub scouts, cheerleaders and negroes frolicking
on the graves of the war dead.....all is as it should be.

Saturday and Sunday pass.....as what doesn't, right?

Monday dawns clear and bright.....well, more or less....I plead
literary license.

I see dead people. WE see dead people.....everywhere we go. Nowhere
NEAR as bizarre (although every bit as unusual, I suppose) as you may
think. They're everywhere! You just haven't been looking. Monday,
Becky and I go out looking for dead people, among other things, but
mostly where dead people li......um.....reside. What we find (in
addition to.....you guessed it!.....dead people) is an endlessly
fascinating cross-section....or, rather series of cross
sections.....of American history, ethnology, economics, politics,
ideology, sexuality, race, biology, religion, cosmography.....and a
host of other ographies and ologies, not least of which is attitudes
toward the natural (more or less) world. Not surprisingly, the latter
manifests itself rather strongly in the wishes of the surviving
relatives of the dead people.....perhaps more so than in the
preferences of the dearly deceased who, for the most part are neither
consulted nor particularly vocal.

What we find, generally, in this part of the world, is that dead
people like trees. This is why, in large part, we like dead people.
Dead people presumably also like birds.....birds like trees (well,
many of them do anyway).....the connection shouldn't be too difficult
to visualize.
Dead people also like quiet, despite their sometimes difficult to
reconcile choice of urban eternal homes (remember, though, that most
of them picked their elysian fields long before 4 or more lane roads
were conceived of, let alone actually built). Dead people seem to be
particularly fond of walnuts, hickories, butternuts, beech and other
economically (from a broader biological perspective as well as the
narrow human view) important species, as well as purely decorative
(for those who like that sort of thing) ornamentals like spruce,
lindens, larches, etc. At any rate, they have obviously put a lot of
thought into their millennial homes. They should be listened to. We
listen.

Anyway.....um......oh, yeah, "Memorial Day!" Dead people.....lots of
them.....everywhere. Many of them (though certainly not all) wore
uniforms of one sort or another.....maids, porters, delivery men,
doormen, nurses, mail carriers, cops, firefighters, drum-majors, girl
scouts.....dead....all dead.....every last ****ing one of them.

And all at play in the groves of the lord.

Sweet.

giles
who will gladly deliver more upon request.