Mark Twain

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.


Dorothy Parker

Ducking for apples - change one letter and it's the story of my life.


Bertrand Russell

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

I went hiking...FILM AT 11!


2005-04-17 at 7:24 p.m.

Today, I went hiking. Please pick your jaws up from the floor and settle down children. I've got a story to tell.

Normally, hiking and I go together like Pat Robertson and a gay pride parade. However, a few weeks ago, I got to examining an old map of E'ville. I noticed that there was a cemetery in addition to the one that's right on Main St.; this other cemetery seemed to be somewhat behind the one I knew about, on the side of a hill.

I mentioned it to someone and they said that the cemetery was still up there, and although most of the bodies had been moved, there were still some graves.

My curiosity was piqued because old cemeteries are interesting to me. I decided to go and find it. It's on the side of a hill that has long since gone back to nature. Once upon a time, according to the map I was looking at, which was circa 1887, the hill was clear-cut except for some decorative trees in the cemetery, the rest was pasture. But over the years, the trees have grown back and now it's like a big forest up there.

I went hiking up there last Sunday and, with the exception of one creepy femur bone that I pray wasn't human, I didn't find anything. I went back to the map, did some guesstimating and gave it another shot today. And I found it.

It's strange. Driving to Dallas from El Paso every year at Christmas, I'm always shocked when the skyscrapers of Midland rise out of the desert like a mirage; completely unexpected and out of context. It was the same thing today with the tombstones, what were left anyway. I was walking along, marveling at the large and copious piles of poop pellets that seemed to be everywhere when suddenly, like Midland's skyline, a small cluster of tombstones rose out of the earth.

There were only five. What struck me as most interesting was that, in the grand scheme of things, they weren't all that old. The cemetery on Main St. starts roughly around 1799 and it's still going, the most recent grave is from last year, I think. But at least two markers from the abandoned cemetery were from the 1920s. It seems odd to me that a grave could be forgotten in only 80-odd years.

Once I found that little cluster, I found a few other stones, littering the side of the hill like discarded cans. I was also able to tell where other graves had been disenterred. There were lots of large, shallow dents in the ground that had once been plots. I wonder where those bodies went? I also wonder why the cemetery was abandoned. I'll have to research it because now my curiosity is piqued.


Currents...

Currently Reading...
Almost a Bride by Jane Feather. That's right, I'm back to smutty romance novels. What can I say? My brain needs a break from all that thinking.

Currently Hearing...
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Requium

Currently Watching...
All crime, all the time.

Currently Smelling...
That new car smell.

Currently Driving...
2005 Chevy Malibu, Black. My lease was up and I cannot resist the siren call of new vehicles. God, I'm such a whore.

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