More about the dead

I was thinking some more about the highway crosses/shrines of MT. It seems like an extension, really, of the cemetary concept. I never really got cemetaries as a kid. They were fun to play in- and get creeped out. The scariest one was in the Helena valley- I guess that I have a couple of relatives there- my Dad took me there once to see them. I could never find them, so I don't remember who they were. But it is the cemetary with the huge mausoleum built by Thomas Cruise (the same guy who built the Helena Cathedral, and a large castle-like mansion on the West side). What creeped me out were the holes in front of the gravestones. They were drilled by gophers, I think. And they scared the crap out of me.

Later I saw Carrie, and about died of fright in the end (the hand scene). It took me back to the holes in the cemetary. I wondered when I was little if they were put there so that the dead could talk to us through them. I walked quickly past them- I didn't want to hear their voices.

I have a fixation for cemetaries now. I really enjoy pretty ones with lots of trees and very old graves. I like to try and put together a mental picture of the families. In High School we jumped the fence into the cemetary next to the school during art classes to draw. It was just so quiet and such a mental distance from the school.

Interestingly enough, my Mother and Stepfather actually own a cemetary. It's the old Potter's field in the Helena Valley. It was part of his ranch, and can't be developed with the rest of the land. I got to see the chart of the graves once- it was interesting. I have never walked out there- it was where the cattle grazed, and that's a trecherous undertaking if there ever was one. I'm a little scared of being in the same area as a bunch of cattle. They are large in person, and don't seem very friendly.

Personally, I don't want to be planted in the ground. Never, never, never. I would much prefer to fertilize a garden (in ash form, of course, silly), or wash down a creek in Western MT. The idea of being in a box still creeps me out.