General: October 2007 Archives
I first discovered cemeteries at the age of thirteen. This began a life-long passionate hobby of exploration and research into the rich history and the lives of those underneath the ground. From that very first cemetery experience I started a spiral, three-ringed notebook that I titled "Grave Concerns." I logged important grave marker data into this notebook, as well as sketchings and rubbings.
On that first day of discovery in January 1968 in a town called Hayward, California, I was walking the one-and-half miles to Bret Hart Junior High as I did hundreds of mornings before. It was unlike any other January day. The sky was a solid steel gray with long, deep and heavy chasms of threatening black clouds. Every now and then these clouds would let loose with a torrent of ice pellets. What was left of the brown, crunchy autumn leaves were being scattered about by a very chilly wind that cut through my clothing like sharp little knives. On this day I was running late for school. I decided to take a shortcut through what we kids called the Plunge Park Cemetery that lay directly behind the school. Calling it an old cemetery would be a gross understatement! The crumbling markers, overgrown foliage and two big partially toppled trees cleary showed that no one really cared anymore.
I managed to crawl safely through a break in the dilapidated fence and made an attempt to quickly pass to the other side. My attempt failed. I would end up completely missing my first period class. This was my first time in the place and it made me feel quite uneasy, not because of the dead people buried there, but of being caught by park officials in a place surrounded by "no trespassing" signs. I found the neglected and crumbling grave markers with their exotic symbols and inscriptions, fuel for my over-active imagination and passion for history. It was on this day that my true education began in earnest. What I learned from the many visits to this cemetery, and the side visits to my local public library, eclipsed anything I was taught in public school. This alternative education process would have a dramatic and life-changing effects on me as an adult.
As I walked among the various markers I noticed that the cemetery was neatly divided up into sections based on religion, ethnicity and trade. The smallest most neglected section was Jewish. The Star of David still showed prominantly on all the markers but the names and dates were unreadable. The other smaller section was a mixture of Freemasons, Rosicrucians and Catholics. This section had the only three above ground crypts in the whole cemetery. All three were in a state of absolute disrepair and had been noticeably vandalized time and time again.
The biggest and most colorful section of this place had been reserved for the "Woodsmen of the World." The names and dates on these markers were still fairly readable with few exceptions. The dates were from the 20's and 30's. These markers were not your typical, everyday rectangular stones laying flat or standing upright, but mostly granite shaped into the form of a tree trunk about four feet high. I didn't find out until months later at my local library what this "Woodsmen of the World" inscription meant. This is when I started my notebook so I could keep all this newfound knowledge straight in my head.
"Woodsmen of the World" was a common inscription put on grave markers of those who were called "Wobbly"--a nickname given to workers who were members of the Industrial Workers of the World trade unionist movement. It was started in Chicago in June of 1905 by Big Bill Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, and others who were dissatisfied with the lack of progress of the little old craft unions under Sam Gompers' American Federation of Labor. They were a defiantly radical group mostly anarchist-syndicalists of a sort, and they argued bitterly with socialists as to the value of trying to elect working-class congessmen. Their idea was to ultimately sign up all the workers in One Big Union, improve their conditions, and eventually call a general strike to decide who was going to run the world--the workers or the bosses.
It was at one of these "Woodsmen of the World" granite stumps that I had an experience that cracked open my little provincial world of dead people and history. In the spring of 1969 as I walked through the cemetery on my way to school I noticed a classmate sitting cross-legged against a Wobbly marker. As I got closer he was just staring straight ahead, glassy-eyed. A thin syringe was inserted into his left index finger, just under the skin. After pausing I quickly moved on, my heart racing and butterflies dancing in my stomach. Later that day other classmates educated me about "skin-popping herion." The sight of my classmate that day was so disturbing that I buried myself even further into my world of books and arcane knowledge. The classmate I encountered on that day in the cemetery died two years later from a drug overdose.
The summer following my awakening to the real world of herion abuse, I spent inside the public library researching everything I could find out about the Wobblies and other related topics. I eventually discovered Marxism. One day at the library I took down a huge condensed version of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, and attempted to read it. This was quite an undertaking for a 14-year old boy. I managed, however, to read the inside book jacket and most of the introduction. Most of what was being said went way over my head but the passages about the "working-class revolution" fired my imagination even more than the science fiction I was reading at the time. This heralded the beginning of my political activism later as an adult.
The other area of the Plunge Park Cemetery that became prominant in my notebook as well as my heart was the Freemason section. the names and dates here were often worn off the stones but the Masonic symbols and inscriptions stood the test of time. Symbols such as the "pyramid with the all-seeing eye", the letter "G", and the "compass" intrigued me enough to start a search in the public library. One of the local librarians claimed to be a Freemason and gave me some useful information and books to read. He even invited me down to the local Scottish Rite of Freemasonry church but I never went. He told me that Freemasonry is the oldest and the largest fraternal order in the world. It is a universal brotherhood of men dedicated to serving God, family, mankind and country. The heritage of modern Freemasonry is derived from the organized guilds or unions of stonemasons who contructed the beautiful cathedrals and other stately structures throughout Europe during the middle ages. The skills and architectural genius of these craftsmen and their commitment to the highest standards of moral and ethical values were universally applauded, and unlike other classes of people, they were allowed to travel "freely" from country to country. Thus, during this period, the word "free" was prefixed to the word mason, and these craftsmen, and generations of masons who followed, were referred to as Freemasons.
In 1971, about the time I was filling up my notebook with Freemasonry data, another dramatic and disturbing experience happened to me that shattered my small, bookish, provincial world forever. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo a radical mastectomy. This hung over my little world like an angry black cloud for quite a long time. This experience petrified me to the core of my being, because I saw some outside force, which I had no control over, trying to take my mother away from me. All of this exotic and seemingly important knowledge that filled my notebook lay impotent before this force.
I found myself spending more time in the Plunge Park Cemetery. Often I would sit by one of my favorite grave markers and look up in the sky and just think. I would think about the people buried there and what kind of lives they lived and what tragedies they may have survived. I also tried to imagine life without my mother. It was impossible! On more than one occassion the tears would flow down my face. During this intense time of my life the Plunge Park Cemetery became the one place that was eternal, that did not change, that always remained stable like a rock.
It has been too many years since that first day I discovered the Plunge Park Cemetery. Even now as I write this I have the urge to revisit that place of my boyhood with its many mysteries and crumbling history, and once again walk those same steps. But of course, now the view would be profoundly different, almost tragically different I fear. The memory I have of this place and the spiral, three-ringed notebook that documents this memory, will always have a place in my heart as a monument to my boyhood, my alternative education, my classmate's death, my mother's near-death experience, that catapulted me upon a lifetime journey of finding the truth.
I have been thinking about expectations most of the afternnon today. When I set up my new blog recently I felt quite nervous. Even though I have large amounts of essays laying about ready to transcribe onto this blog site, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. Where do I start? What subject matter do I start with? Should I start with material from my recent vacation to California? Should I comment on the various and sundry ways the Democratic Presidential candidates show us their lack of spine? Oh, what do I do?
I could procrastinate further. By the way, I have mastered the art of procrastination to such a degree that I'm still waiting for recognition and that revered presidential medal of freedom. But I went to the trouble of setting this blogging software up through my domain host provider; I just better get off my lazy butt and do it.
When I do publish an essay you dear readers will be the first to know. I am not going to put unrealistic expectations on myself and crank out an essay every day like a 1930's hack writer. No. I am going to plan and think about what I publish. Just because the space is here and a potential of 500 million readers may be waiting with bated breath for my nuggests of wisdom, I am certainly going to take my time. If I published daily for awhile that would be great. But the reality is that my publishing efforts will be mostly hit and miss, so my devoted readers will have to come back often so that nothing is missed.
The first duty of a personal essayist is to write when the mood is there and not before. If my writing efforts ever get to the point of triviality and banality then I would hope that a kind reader will respond and tell me so.
