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.