Anyway, that is not the topic for today’s post. Today, I’m going to talk about something sad and disturbing that I stumbled upon last night.
Since the weather was going to be so lousy today, I made a point of shooting home from work yesterday and heading right out on the bike to get more miles on while I still could.
I headed for a road I’d recently discovered about 20 miles away from home, determined to find out where it went. In short order, I was soon humming along said roadway, enjoying long stretches of roadway, uninterrupted by side streets, houses, or other traffic. Wonderful!
All too soon (as is always the case with great roads), it led me back into civilization, replete with intersections, crosswalks,…and people. Damn. Oh well, I meandered this way and that, and since I hadn’t really strayed all that far from home, I recognized landmarks from time to time. And each time I realized where I was, I made sure to find an unfamiliar road to try and get a bit lost again.
It was during this “found, get lost again” silliness that last night’s story really begins. I was riding along some strange back roads, when I spotted a mini amphitheater atop a cemetery I was passing by…
I love cemeteries; the serenity, the celebration of lives, and the architecture. So, having seen this incredible edifice, I had to turn in and check it out.
Riding up to it, I set the stand and took a pic – this thing was impressive!
It had a family name on the top center of the structure, and I wondered what sort of life celebration did this formation serve? I strolled up the stairs and walked to the back…it dropped off sharply…no walls, no stairs, nothing but…is that a door below? Yes, and walking around to the other side for another pic, it became clear to me; this entire structure was a mammoth family vault! Holy crap!
There were a few other vaults nearby and I strolled about to take them in. This one has either been here longer than the others, or perhaps it’s construction was not of the same caliber…
One of the vaults appears to be regularly visited by the family, complete with…food offerings? The plate looked like it had held some sort of cake, but the local wildlife residents had made a mess of whatever it was. Those same residents didn’t appear to be coffee enthusiasts, however, as the mug was still full of a dark brown liquid – which I took on faith to indeed be coffee.
From there, it was back onto the bike to ride around and take in some of the grave monuments. Cemeteries, especially the older ones, often have some remarkable works of granite. Take this for example;
Amazing detail, and the sadness conveyed is almost palpable. I paused here only briefly, then moved along.
The next one that caught my eye, did so for an entirely different reason. Have any of you seen The Exorcist III? A very scary movie, in which the devil kills people and replaces their heads with heads from statues (so when you saw a missing statue head, you knew someone, somewhere, was being killed). So imagine my shock when I rounded a corner and saw this grim display…
It didn’t occur to me at first that the culprit here was vandalism, I had hoped that it was merely time and weather that had done the dirty deed. However, upon closer inspection, I noticed that there was an arm missing as well. Not a good sign. I felt badly for the family who had placed this here in memory of their loved one, and hoped their sorrow was not compounded too much by the defamation of their memorial.
I was quickly burning the daylight that was left in the day, so I figured it was time to head back out to the roadways. I fired the bike up, clicked out of neutral and began rolling slowly toward the exit, heading through a section of the cemetery I hadn’t passed through yet. And that’s when the night took a sad turn.
What I saw was a US Flag which had presumably been previously placed on the grave of a service member who had passed. It was now lying on the ground, so I stopped, set the kickstand, walked over and reset the flag, tall and straight once again. Turning back toward the bike, I saw another flag off to my side at a very low angle, it’s fabric fully caressing the ground. I walked over to it and righted it, pushing it a bit further into the earth, to keep it firmly in place. As I walked back to my bike, I saw another flag…and then another…and another. Something was wrong here…
These flags hadn’t just fallen over. Most of their posts were broken – splintered, and twisted back upon themselves, then strewn about without care or concern where they landed.
This was unbelievable - this had been done deliberately. Who does this kind of thing? Sadly, probably just young kids who were bored, and not aware of the significance of what they were doing.
I walked back and forth, picking up flags, straightening the posts that were salvageable, breaking off the broken ends of ones which were not, and then finding veteran’s graves to place them by. And each time I fixed a section, I’d get back onto the bike, ride to the next section, and do it all over again.
This guy was too badly damaged to salvage, so he came home with me and will be retired with full honors at the Legion.
By the time I was done, I must have picked up/fixed/reset over 40 flags. It’s amazing enough (and not in a good way) that such a thing even happened in the first place, but for it to have been tolerated just exacerbates the entire scenario. During my time there, I saw a family walking through the cemetery. At the time I saw them, they were off in the distance, in a section of the cemetery I hadn’t ridden through yet – one of the sections with the flags on the ground. They weren't in a hurry, either. They were pausing, looking at the stones, taking things in, and taking their time. That means the family – parents, with their kids – saw the flags on the ground and did nothing. I also saw a guy walking his dog. He was talking on his phone while his dog bounded around between the stones. At one point, the dog ran up to me to say hello – I removed my glove so he could sniff my hand, and then, satisfied that I was “ok”, he let me pet him. I saw the guy watching me, and I know he saw me replacing the flags. And since he and his pet were on foot, this can’t be the first time he’s walked his dog here. So why are the flags still on the ground? Is empathy really that entrenched nowadays?
Given their obvious lack of interest, I don’t hold much hope for the family, but I’m hoping the guy walking his dog will remember what I did, and the next time he sees a flag on the ground, maybe he’ll do the right thing.
There were also many houses lining the street by the entrance to the cemetery, and I hope there were some folks in those houses who saw me. I hope they watched the stranger in the cemetery; a biker, dressed from head to toe in black winter gear, his head, face and hands covered against the wind and chill, setting his kickstand, then getting off his bike and walking the rows of markers, picking up flags, straightening them, then finding appropriate graves to place them back at. Walking back over to his bike, starting it up, riding to the next section, dismounting, and doing it all over again. And then the next section, and the one after that, and so on. I hope that image will stick in at least someone’s mind, and maybe…just maybe…something good will come of it.
My plan for the evening had been to find some new roads and lay out some good rides for when the warmer temps arrive. However, when the last cemetery section was fixed and I finally rolled up to the exit, the daylight was all but gone from the skies. I’d used up the last of it not twisting corners and mapping new routes, but walking amongst rows of granite and trying to do a little bit of Right.
As I turned my headlight toward home, I counted the night a success.
Ride Hard, Have Some Respect.
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