Cemeteries

Whether real or fake, cemeteries are big around here at this time of year. Think Sleepy Hollow, Headless Horsemen and Halloween. Lyndhurst finished building its scarecrow cemetery. (Note: *all* those figures in the background are scarecrows):

And the real cemeteries are crowded too, not only with "permanent residents" (as they like to say around here) but also with locals and tourists looking for a good time. The cemetery tours for all of October and November were sold out last week, which inspired me to take my own self-guided tour to find out what I will be missing.

I went to the Sleepy Hollow cemetery looking for ghoulish, or at the very least, florid artwork and campy epitaphs. What I found instead were your normal, run of the mill, expensive stones with names on them -- just what you might expect to find in a Westchester cemetery. Without anything outrageous to distract me, I suddenly began to obsess on the fact that I was wandering around trampling on dead people. And, mind you, whereas some people cry at weddings, I tend to cry in cemeteries, even if I don't know any of the permanent residents. All it takes is a "Beloved wife of..." and the tears start to flow.

Making matters worse yesterday, I found sprinkled among the big stones the occasional simple marker with only a first name, or an initial, or (sob!) no markings at all.

I'm definitely crossing the Green-Wood Cemetery tour off my to-do list!