Glacial knoll

 I had a letter to mail today, on such a blue and beautiful day, that I decided to take a ride through town and take some pictures for a post that's been on my mind. The drive through town was the same as last year--impassible car and foot traffic clogging the road. 

But it was a beautiful day and they all wanted out, too, and who am I to deny them the pleasure of circling town to find a parking place.

My destination was the township's original cemetery. Most of the original founders are buried there, as are their descendants; it makes me smile to see stone after stone with those old names. For me, the interest is the geography. The cemetery is built on a glacial knoll.

A knoll is an isolated hill. In this area of extensive glacial activity, a glacial knoll is not such an anomaly. It has been tested and declared not a mound. I have no idea what the 1805 settlers thought, but Mr. Stanford and many descendants are on the hill.

The first time I drove through the cemetery, which actually is around, I peered over the hood to locate the road. I still do.  I don't know that my pictures do it justice, but here we go.

The road goes up to the right, and the direction is clearly marked. You can just see the first arrow inside the gate in the first photo.

It's a lovely and well maintained township cemetery. There is a commission that overlooks both township cemeteries.

And the road goes up and up, the hill drops down and down.

We're at the top now, curving around the back and about to start down.

This is the downhill side, through my windshield. That is a wiper reflection on the window.

There are many old nineteenth century stones. Small stones, small children.

This stone is a sad, sad problem in the cemetery. Half way through the twentieth century this cemetery began to acquire the reputation as haunted and demonic. We all know what happened in the last quarter of that century, the internet came. Stories that were propagated in newspaper stories by reporters who had to produce an inch of filler became "truth" on the internet.

Suddenly the cemetery was no longer private and sacred property, it was fair game for teenagers on a lark, mediums doing whatever, cults with unorthodox religious venerations.

Headstones were fair game for destruction. The one pictured has one repair and is waiting for enough taxpayer money to accrue to repair it again. The worst I will tell you is the burning of live reptiles on stones. It is so difficult to conceive of people who feel the right to go where and do what they please. Yes, there are fences around both cemeteries. They are not electric.

Do you see what I encountered on my way out. I intended to show the rest of the circular drive, and instead I encountered two men on motor cycles, determined to ride in the opposite direction. I can see what a thrill they might find that at excessive speed.

I indicated they needed to go the other direction. They continued up the hill. I continued down, directly at them. They split, to pass on the narrow strip of grass. I made it clear that only one of them would succeed. 

They went down and roared on in the proper direction.