Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Hand to Hand

"I don't believe in the afterlife, but I am bringing a change of underwear."
Woody Allen

These hands caught my fancy recently on a ride through Evergreen Cemetery. When I worked there for 9 summers, I spent a lot of my free time investigating the stones, carvings, names and dates of the deceased, and in some cases how they met their demise. I love how you can find a baby's small, seemingly insignificant stone alongside a huge family mausoleum. Here are a couple of headstones from Disney's World's Haunted Mansion: 
Fred Joerger- Here Lies Good Old Fred. A Great Big Rock Fell On His Head. RIP
(set designer and model builder for Disney)

Cliff Huet- REST IN PEACE COUSIN HUET, WE ALL KNOW YOU DIDN'T DO IT.
(interior designer)
By the way, both real people who worked and knew Walt Disney personally. 
Humor and death: they seem an odd combination.

*These days when I'm in Evergreen, I'm on a bit of a quest. There is a stone, among the 65,000 buried here. I found it once and have been going back and searching for it to no avail. It has a small tin type photograph attached to the front. I know it's in there. Wish me luck!




15 comments:

  1. Here's wishing you luck in your quest.

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  2. That's interesting Birdman..sometimes I walk around the headstones and markers at the Monterey Cemetery and wonder about all the silent stories of dead war heros and babies.

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  3. There is always some history carved on the tombstones.
    Costas

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  4. I'd like to have time enough to explore cemeteries, and to try to find and understand those mysterious things carved in stones.

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  5. And what treasures you are finding along the way as you search! Humor & death, it is a great combination, I think...

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  6. oh, good luck with the treasure hunt! :)

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  7. Sounds like you have given yourself a challenge, which I'm sure you'll meet. :)

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  8. it's always fun to poke around a cemetery especially if you have ancestors there!

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  9. Nice headstone. I agree with RedPat, it can be interesting to poke around.

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  10. I've seen those headstones with a tintype before. Good luck in your search.

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  11. Interesting and strange tomb decoration. We greet one another and shake hands while we're alive. I wonder it it is a symbol we don't understand.

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  12. Good luck with your search Birdman, how many thousands left to go!

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  13. My wife and I were planting flowers at a small unmarked child's headstone one day and she dug up an old skate key. It instantly brought the reality of the past to the present. You will find that stone. I know that feeling.

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