vituperation

May 5, 2003

As I mentioned, we went to Maple Hill Cemetery this weekend to wander among the graves and take some pictures. What we found when we got there is that we apparently have a Forrest Gump-like ability to wander into things (like the Founder’s Day stuff in Decatur a couple of weeks ago), because we managed to pick the one day of the year when Maple Hill has the annual cemetery stroll.

In a nutshell, on the first Sunday in May people from the historical society don period clothes and pretend to be famous people from the past who’re buried in Maple Hill Cemetery. This past Sunday was the first Sunday of May. We, of course, being without a clue, were pretty surprised when all the costumed people started showing up while we were there.

We were walking along one of the tiny cemetery roads at one point, when an old-person car — with a couple of old people in it — crept past us and stopped a little in front of us. A very old woman in a checked dress and a bonnet got out and started messing around with one of the roadblocks. I glanced at her and resumed looking for old graves, not realizing what it was she was trying to do.

Robyn nudged me.

“You should see if she needs some help,” she said.

I looked at the old woman. She was standing in the middle of the road spinning the roadblock, which looked like a giant pawn in a chess set and apparently screwed right into the asphalt. Her husband sat in the car, watching her.

I walked over, exuding masculinity. Like a big cat’s — perhaps a lion or a tiger — my muscles rippled under my skin.

“Can I help with that?” I asked. She looked up at me.

“I’m trying to save myself a little driving,” she said, and pointed down the narrow road. "I need to park down there to get my loom to the grave.”

I stepped up to the roadblock and grasped it firmly. I gave it a mighty spin. I spun it some more. For good measure, I spun it about ten more times. It didn’t come up.

I spun the roadblock for a good two or three minutes to no avail. Finally, I dropped to my hands and knees (my bare knees, ouch) on the asphalt and looked under the roadblock, which was about two inches off the ground on a very large bolt. I gave it a spin and found that the roadblock was spinning, but the bolt was not. It was simply sitting there, silently mocking my manhood.

“Can you keep this balanced?” I asked, nodding at the roadblock, “I’m going to reach underneath and turn the bolt by hand.”

The old woman was amenable, and I had the roadblock out of the road in short order. She walked to her car and got in. Rolling down the window, she said, “Wait till I go by then put it back.”

Her husband just watched from the passenger seat.

She drove down the road and stopped about a hundred feet away. I positioned the bolt in the hole and spun the hell out of the roadblock. That accomplished nothing. Like before, I tried spinning the roadblock for several minutes and made no headway with getting it reattached to the asphalt. Pulling Robyn into my predicament, I had her balance the roadblock while I got back on my hands and knees to get the bolt to screw into the hole.

“When you get done there,” the old woman called from down the road, “we need you over here!”

I gave Robyn a big stinkeye look, then called jauntily, “Okay, as soon as I can get this back in!”

Ten minutes and one road-rashed hand later I stood next to the trunk of the old woman’s car, looking in at a large wooden loom. Sweat rolled down my face, and I was still breathing hard from putting the roadblock back. Her husband stood nearby on crutches, which explained why he’d been simply watching us the whole time.

The old woman motioned to the trunk of her car, and then to the yellow cart next to it.

"If you can just lift that loom out and set it on the cart I can do the rest," she said. Straining mightily, I lifted the bulky — and heavy — loom from her trunk and placed it on the cart.

It wobbled madly, threatening to tip off at any second and possibly desecrate a grave with brightly colored threads.

"How about if I hold it," I suggested, "and keep it balanced, while you pull it over to your, er, the grave?"

The old man watched, from a distance.

"Good idea," the woman said, and sprinted away, pulling the cart behind her. Seriously sprinted. Carl Lewis would have trouble keeping up with this woman. I ran behind her, desperately trying to keep the loom balanced on the wildly bouncing cart.

She wove a tight path among the tombstones as she raced toward her spot. A tight path was good for her, because she was leading the way. A tight path was bad for me, because I was beside the cart and therefore tripped, stumbled, and scuffed my way through the grave markers, trying to hold my own.

Finally, we made it to the grave and I set her loom up. She thanked me and I made my way back to my wife and the spud, and we continued our trip. Next time, actual grave pictures, unless something more interesting happens between now and then.

Now, I’m going to take a page from my wife’s book and offer the following:

Do you have any burning questions about me you’d like to ask? Send me an email, ask your question, and you might see it answered here, for all the world to see.

Please, though, no questions about losing weight. There’s more to me than that.