Having respect for the dead means that future generations don't pave over cemeteries for parking lots. Cemeteries are paved over, on occasion, but it is the exception rather than the rule. There is no law, however, that says cemeteries can't be tourist attractions. A headstone, plain or fancy, reminds onlookers that so-and-so existed within the confines of two dates. If the carved numerals are decipherable, a moment of mental arithmetic ensues, a calculation of how old so-and-so lived to be.
In Harrisonburg there are more than 250 Confederate graves in a quadrant of the oldest cemetery. Each small marble marker reads like a word in a chilling sentence, or a sentence in a numbing chapter. The regularity with which the markers are placed, row upon row like a marching battalion, suggests an orderliness, a solidarity of purpose. The Southern Cause is given shape and substance. I know it is an act of practicality, the organizing of corpses in a limited space, but still the geometry of the graves disturbs me. Death for any cause, lost or won, is not quite so cut and dried as a cemetery layout."
Peter Svenson
We just got back from the casino. Frankie and I are about to make more pumpkin muffins from Shannen O'Lantern. I froze some.
