At Arlington
Today I paid a visit to Arlington Memorial Park, where only the
dead hang out. There are no tombstones here for vandals to deface, only
flush-mounted brass markers laid over broad expanses of green grass. I
watched a maintenance man steer his tractor perilously close to the brass
flower urns mounted atop the graves. They look like pylons in a macabre
slalom course. I don't care for the custom of mounting flower urns on the
graves because they're just something to trip over. Besides, buying flowers
for the dead is a waste of good money. It makes no more sense than bringing
bagels. Who cares what you give the dead? Better to buy sandwiches for the
poor than flowers for the dead.
This is a very private and anonymous place. Everybody's marker
looks about the same, so unless you knew right where to look, you'd never
be able to locate anyone. There may be a lot of people buried here, but
when it comes to live folk, this is about the least crowded place in town.
I discovered a half-acre landfill down a side road with a
tractor-back hoe combination parked nearby. That's what they use to
excavate the graves. The dirt is placed in little wagons that are disguised
to look like diesel generators, then it's hauled to the land fill. It's
interesting to see how much effort has been made to obscure the reality of
what goes on here.
Crows caw, mocking the dead from their perches in nearby trees.
They always seem to congregate around cemeteries. They're carrion eaters,
so perhaps they're attracted by something they smell. But they won't get
much to eat around here, since everybody arrives sealed in a box and the
cars that come and go through the gates move too slow to provide road kills
on a reliable basis.
I'm standing on the grave of Dr Ridley Bush, who was born in '41
and died in '77 at the age of thirty-six. The poor guy spent half his life
in school working to be a doctor, and just about the time it started to pay
off, he keeled over and died. I wonder what sacrifices he made to attain
the title which now adorns his grave.
A few yards from Ridley lies another doctor: Marvose Mosteller MD,
1930-1981. He only lived fifty-one years. I wonder if his busy schedule
ever permitted him enough time to spend one quiet afternoon in a cemetery?
It doesn't matter now. Although he was too busy to make an appointment,
Death penciled him in anyway. The grass beneath my feet is full of insects,
as is Doctor Mostellar. Swarms of tiny broad-winged flies alight on my
clothes. The high and the low all lie here together beneath the same red
clay. What significance do titles and names have here? Doctor who?
Here lies another man- William Wallace Workman1954-1983. He only
lived twenty-nine years. Beside him lies Yvonne Anne Workman. Her marker
says,"Sept. 1955-murdered March 7, 1983." She was only twenty-eight years
old when she died. There's an inscription after her name which reads, "Your
spirit of love, compassion and belief in the goodness in all has touched
many lives and lives on... Shalom Yvonnie."
Very touching, but it was probably Yvonnie's belief in "the
goodness in all" that got her killed.
The crows caw loudly. One bold bird braves the brisk breeze to come
investigate me. He circles round and round, peering at me from above. From
his vantage point, I'm a slow, impotent earthling who can do him no harm.
When I stare up at him, he caws loudly, as if to announce, "Hey guys, this
one's still alive!" Then he and his two cronies rise up to form a murder
and let the wind carry them away. Long after they're out of sight I can
still hear them laughing in the distance.
I paused at one more grave. Here lies a man who was born in 1896
and died in 1980. He was eighty-four years old. His wife was born in 1900
and lived seventy-seven years. Their son, however, was born in 1923 and
died in '66 when he was only 43 years old. You know that there must have
been pain in that old couple's hearts when their son died. But the pain
died along with them, now covered by red clay and the grass of spring.
One other couple I thought worthy of an honorable mention was
Clarence Mann and his wife, Carolyne. Clarence was born on Halloween,1891,
and died in 1989 at the age of 98. Carolyne was born in 1889, and died in
1972 at the age of 83. Nobody knows what sights were seen by those dead
eyes. Nobody knows what touched them as they passed through life like
shadows. Two lie dead, and will remain so for a very long time. I
guess they were lucky by human standards, because they lived about as long
as anyone could hope to live.
As I was walking back toward my car, I passed a man who was
standing facing a grave. He was wearing a casual-looking checkered shirt.
The grave was decorated with a vase of fresh yellow carnations. I said
hello, and asked, "Do you know anybody at this address?" He pointed toward
the grave and said, "Yes, that's my mother."
I asked, "Did she die recently?"
He said, "No, she died in the Fall."
I drove a bit further until I spotted a meditation garden built
against the face of a rock wall. Water trickled down the wall and into a
shallow pool at the base. Just in front of the pool was a marble bible
mounted on a pedestal. To my right stood three marble angels. They were
arranged around a little cave which was made up to look like Jesus' tomb.
The cave was seven feet deep and four feet tall. I could tell from
the drill marks and shattered pattern of stone that the cave had been
blasted out. Inside was a low stone bench running the length of the cave. I
could see where the bench had been polished from people sitting on it. So I
hunched over and entered, sitting where others had sat before me. I heard
birds singing in the distance, the wind in the trees, the trickling of
water.
A spider's web hung in the back of the cave up near the roof. And
in the web hung three tiny sticks. Other than the polished seat, that was
the only evidence that anyone else had been here. I picked up a strand of
pine straw and hung it in the web.
As soon as I'd done so, it occurred to me that the cave was
probably poisonous. Otherwise, the spider that made this web would have
cleaned away the sticks by now. The park staff probably sprayed the cave
regularly with chlorodane to keep the cave free of insects.
With that thought, I clambered out of the cave and walked over to
the rock wall to examine the reflection pool. It was a scummy sight, filled
with rusty brown water covered by a metallic oil sheen. A french fry and an
onion ring lay on the drainage grate in the middle of the pool. I cannot
imagine why the people who planted the flowers and contrived this scene
didn't also do something to give this pool a little more aesthetic appeal.
As I was driving out of the park I passed a large duck pond. The
water was such an odd greenish-blue color that I'm certain some kind of
coloring agent was added to give it a more "natural" look. When a swan
climbed out of the pond I saw that he had a green ring encircling his
waterline.