Livin' in a small town...

Today was my Dad's birthday. I took him flowers and a beer. We have a really old, beautiful cemetary here, and Dad's buried so he can look out over the valley and see the house.

The last three groundskeepers were heavy drinkers, so a lot of 'mistakes', especially of the paperwork sort, got made at the cemetary. My parents original plots got sold to someone else and we had to pick new ones. But occasionally, the mistakes went beyond getting buried in the wrong plot. One of my friends had the remains of their grandmother 'lost' there. We're still lookin' for her.

And someone stole the cup that went with my Dad's headstone. I'm sure it wasn't vindictive. They prolly showed up with fresh flowers and forgot their own vase. But it still irritates me a bit.

Not that we can't be a vindictive bunch. When Ol' Man Dutra died, someone snuck up and put an outhouse on his grave. He was meaner n' a snake though. And there are a few boundaries. You can't deface a headstone...that would be considered bad manners.

Mom always enjoys going out to the cemetary too. Lately she's insisting that she doesn't want to be buried too close to Dad. She says she put up with the old SOB for 60 years and down't wanna spend any more time with him. So I'm hoping she'll change her mind about that. But she likes going out there and walking around. She'll call out 'Oh look! Here's Aunt Alice. I can't believe Uncle Gene hasn't brought her flowers lately." Or 'There's Bob Hinds. His kids need to clean off that stone'. It's sort of like passing judgement on those that have been left behind.

But she walks around, pulls a few weeds, dusts off a few headstones and says 'Hey' to a few old friends.

Pleasant way to spend the afternoon.