Day 19
The title for this blog should be “A Tale of Two Cemeteries” and it might start like this. “It was a dark and stormy day.” We both got very wet.
As promised, I visited two cemeteries yesterday. Visiting Cave Hill was wet but serene and beautiful. There was a large staff out, even in the rain, making everything neat and tidy. After I found a place to park my rig, we walked using a map, to find Ali. His plot did not disappoint; however, I didn’t stay long because there was a funeral happening just a few steps away.
You know the thing about Ali is he really was a humble man. His epitaph says “Service to others is the rent you pay for your place in heaven.” Even though, as a young man, he declared himself “The Greatest” I still think he was a very humble man, someone to admire.
The other cemetery, Eastern Cemetery, drew me for a very different reason. I learned the story of this resting place a while back as I was researching places to visit. The state of Eastern is so sad. The lawns need mowing (in some places the grass is chest high) and you can see divots in the ground where graves have fallen in on themselves. Some sections are better attended however, in testimony to the efforts of the “Friends of Eastern Cemetery”. At least someone is trying to do something to honor the dead buried there. I won’t relate the story here except to say that this facility, which should house about 30,000, holds the remains of at least 150,000 because the unscrupulous owners sold and resold lots and buried people on top of people over and over again. It’s hard to imagine how this could have happened in modern society but there is it. There is a documentary out there called “Facing East” if you want to learn the whole story.
Frankfort KY
