Gravestones, that's the latest item on my mind. Actually, it's not that new. We grew up on Falconer Street which ran both ways perpendicular to Washington Avenue. On the other end of our street was a large cemetery, one my mother often took us to on a walk. There we would search the stones for one with our name, or our day of birth, looking for a certain angel or checking out the resident's picture featured on the stone. Yesterday Sabra and I went to Maria's grave with a cardboard cutout of her proposed stone. When I write this, it seems a little bizarre, but actually it makes a lot of sense. The stone so far, will be 36" high, with 12" under the ground, 30" wide and 3" thick. So, we placed the cardboard "stone" up against the wooden cross that's there to see the height and compare it to Patty's stone which is right next to her. Then we went to the old part of the cemetery to see how it used to be done. When we first told the memorial man that we wanted an "old style stone" for Maria, he said, "It's about time to put an old looking stone up there on the hill." And, he's right. They all look about the same. When my father died, my brother looked for an appropriate stone for him. After seeing all the same stones, he asked, "Do you have anything in a sport motif?" and they found him an old book with a skier on a stone. Perfect. Now, the interesting thing is at that time, the skier stood alone in the cemetery as far as a sportsman theme. But, soon a stone with a man fishing appeared and then a golfer. Daddy was a tread setter. Maybe Maria will be one too. Recently a friend of Sabra's was on Martha's Vineyard and found John Belushi's gravestone which is an old style slate with skull and crossbones. I read that the stone is not near his body, for fear of vandals. But anyway, the old style stones are so interesting. Please look at www.capecodgravestones.com to see samples. Years back Maria, Jer and I did stone rubbings in the Wellfleet graveyard. She gave one to Sabra which is the one we selected for her stone. It can be seen on the website above..look for the name George Brown. It is an angel, young, with an hourglass on her head. I was drawing an example to show Timmy and when I drew the stone, putting the angel on the top rounded part, my angel's wings were too large, and the hourglass looked like a little hat. In fact the whole thing looked like Dumbo ready to fly. I laughed out loud, and asked "Hey, Ria how about you have Dumbo on your stone?"
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