The Boneyard

"For those who visit gravesites of poets they admire, it is not about the grandeur of the spot, but about communing with the individuals."

I've always been fascinated by the dead, not with death, but with the departed. I suppose that's why I spend a great deal of time in cemeteries wandering around admiring headstones, thrilled when I come across a name I just know I will write into a story. Anywhere I travel I have to stop in the local cemetary. I've never made a pilgrimage to a writer's grave, and considering my penchant for visiting boneyards, I really should. A relative/friend laid on top of Faulker's grave. That's more than a little creepy and I understand there's a fence around the grave now to keep crazy fans off. I've never considered rolling on top of a grave, but I considered stabbing one in particular with a blunt butter knife. Ouch!

I really like the discovery of wandering around reading the eptiaphs of people who used to exist, who used to butter their bread, squabble over taxes and who left the outhouse door open. Perhaps that's why I haven't felt the need to search out the famous dead, the unknown are just as fascinating. Moreso, because I can imagine thier lives.

What's surprising is that the dead are usually separated by class, race, status, or taboo in the early 20th century sections of cemeteries. William Kennedy's Ironweed and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology explore this inequity. Cemeteries are far more egalitarian in the later half of the century and beginning of the 21st, from what I've observed.

I have a deep fondness for old headstones that provide autobigraphical information, that have the imprint, a word or phrase, of the deceased, carved into the stone. Many times I provide stories for the deceased. A few years back, I fixated on one headstone in a Southern Utah cemetery filled with polygamists and their wives. I believe the young woman was either the third or fifth wife. She died soon after, probably in childbirth,and as I traced my finger across the brief years she spent breathing, I wondered about my fate if I'd been born in her time. I couldn't create a story for her other than one included duty and religion, but I did give her a little concealed rebellion.

I'm certain the dead don't mind that I appropriate their lives and create new ones. Well, there is one of the dead that really takes it on the nose, and for good reason. I always make him the bad guy, a goatish figure, or a literal goat, (my apologies to goats and to the entire Capridae goat family). Karma and paybacks are a real bitch. In the very least I get to exact retribution with my words.

Back to interesting cemeteries: My husband spent close to six months off and on in Red Lodge, Montana for work, so I travelled to see him at least once a month. This is a town that is flanked by two non-functioning silver mines, the Sunrise and the Sunset, and during it's heyday, the sun barely made a glimmer through all the sooty air. Hemingway included this town in his novel, The Sun Also Rises, and for good reason: the town sports one road with no stop signs and thirteen bars. I have a fondness for three where one can belly up to the original wooden bars. The small town separted itself into ethnic communities such as Finn Town, Scots Town, etc. During my stay in Red Lodge, I spent equal time in the bakery chatting up locals, art galleries adoring Kevin Red Star's huge and beautiful paintings, in restaurants eating gourmet clam chowder which I still crave, and drinking killer Spanish wine.

Where I spent the majority of my time was wandering and photographing in the local cemetery, home to the infamous union organizer Tom Salmon cum murderer who shot and killed the local sheriff, who was also his former best buddy, and unfortunately the husband of his love interest, Katie O'Connor. I also planted myself in the local museum, and the staff was gracious and very patient with my rapid-fire questions. I had the privelege to hold the actual invitaion to Tom Salmon's hanging. It took close to four trips to Red Lodge, numerous visits to the County building, (I stood close to the spot where he was hanged, just couldn't stand on the exact spot), and finally a conversation with the cemetery grounds keeper helped me to track down Salmon's unmarked grave. I considered purchasing a headstone for him, but had a character in a short story Our Lady of Red Lodge, Montana about an identity thief obsessed with the Russian Virgin Mary, do it for me.

One thing I love about the real story of Salmon is that when the judge asked Salmon if he felt bad for putting a bullet in his former pal's skull and leaving his wife a widow, Salmon replied that, "Katie would be better off". The director of the museum told me that she remembered hearing that as long as Katie lived, on the anniversary of Salmon's death, she left a bouquet of yellow daffodils on his patch of earth.

Okay, so it's possible I'm seriously wierd. I'm good with that. Some people collect porcelain figurines, fixate on sports data, fill their homes with kitschy portraits of saints. Name your interest, some are more "normal" than others. I have a dark bent, what can I say? but it's my bent and I'm keeping it! Even though I adore cemeteries, I absolutely hate funerals, mainly because I'm something of an emotional sponge and funerals are such an emotional seige, strong emotion hitting from all sides, no way to dig a moat or lift the castle door quickly enough. I cry at funerals, and copiously, that ugly cry, regardless of whether I knew the person or not. It's more than a little embarassing. My recently departed Grandmother, Mary Briggs Roberts, told me that I, "had a talent for weeping". I really do.

In preparation for Day of the Dead, and oddly, also the beginning of NaNoWriMo, I'm thinking and dreaming a lot about my ancestors.

Check out this article at poets.org about The Graves of Poets