Depart my friends dry up your tears,-On Daniel Bray’s gravestone, Salem cemetery.
Here I must lie till Christ appears.
Death is a debt to nature due,
I’ve paid the debt and so must you.
Salem Cemetery is a strange place. There's a muffler shop 20 feet away from the bones of people who shaped a lot of this region's history.
On a wall, graffitti boasts some unintelligible message about God knows what. I won't speculate on who wrote it, but I think they're local - teenagers most likely, because the cemetery seems like it's not as respected as it should be. Well-trodden paths come too close to gravemarkers, so I have to believe hundreds of people each year walk over these graves, reducing it to tourist attraction rather than place of reverence.
I was humbled by the experience. I'm older than many of the people there; whole families are buried together and many are 25 years old and younger. Three sisters were buried next to each other, and all died within days. I don't know if they were burned for being witches or if they got some disease.
On a lighter note, I visited the pirate museum. And I found two pirates!
The one on the left is Mad-Eye Marge, wanted in fifteen states for piracy, including stealing men's hearts and cheese. The other is Jolly Jillianne, a thief who's hard to catch on account of her being always on the move; She lives in Vancouver, but works all over and after a meeting in Toronto visited us in Boston. She's frequently seen cavorting with Mad-Eye Marge.
1 comment:
The graffiti was done by Senior-Citizens.
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