Life Equals Love Equals Death
One difference I just noticed between Oklahoma and Massachusetts is that there are a lot more cemeteries here! Which only means New England has the tendency to memorialize their dead a bit more responsibly. I'll tell you a little story.
I grew up on 17 acres in a hollow in northeast Oklahoma; it was a really pretty place until the turnpike came through. I was always told there was an old family cemetery in the field out front, and you could easily find some sunken spots in the ground where it was said to be.
One day when I was like 10, I was digging in this old pile of brush and old tree stumps and found a the top half of a tombstone that was broken off at the base. The name on the tombstone was Susan L. Ross, and she was born in 1793 and died in 1845, so there's a very good chance she ended up in Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears. None of my family who lived there knew who she was.
There were several more indentations in the dirt near spot where the cemetery was supposed to be, but I never found any corresponding tombstones. I need to figure out who they are someday.
161 years after she died I am thinking about Susan L. Ross because I found her tombstone in a pile of brush when I was a boy.
posted by jeffrey rowland at 2:37:00 AM
12 Comments:
Hey Jeff...I remember that tombstone story. Danny and I once went digging around your house before, too.
Ice Age first actually Earth is near for the next ice age again, it already been 5,000 years since the last one.
Has you thought about checking the record office if you lads have them in America?
Hmm... I would rather just be remembered through my works, family, and friends. I am not so vain as to suggest that a 4 by 7 foot piece of land needs to be forever reserved for my carcass.
Yep. Donate my body to science.
when i die, i want my body to be suspended from a crane, high above times square in new york city and then dynamited.
I think they should let you do whatever you want with your withered old husk when you're done with it as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. I want my remains to be ground up in with McDonald's hamburger meat.
The one time I drove the backroads of Oklahoma, sometimes the only signs of civilization were the signposts for graveyards every couple of miles.
Every time I passed one, I wondered how they even managed to fill one.
I admire the apparent serenity with which you discovered that your front yard was really and truely fulled up with dead people. Good fo' you.
Way to make me depressed, Captain Bringdown!
I'm glad to see that If Lucy Fell isn't forgotten.
It's symbolic.
One of my obsessions is overcoming entropy, and leaving a reminder of yourself that still evokes a "?" after 161 years is a good way. Jeff, data you created will be around as long as humans use computers. Probably 100 years from now your work will be rediscovered and someone will write a book about you. Or one page will survive and they will wonder if the rest was as funny.
Karen, that was truly beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Yeah no doubt, nice Karen. Sometimes when I kill an insect I just feel the most ridiculous amount of remorse and it's nice to know it's at least somewhat universal.
Post a Comment
<< Home