A Final Thought: One Night in the Cemetery...

Last week, my wife and I drove home to Georgia—13-hours ending in 10-lane, stop-and-go Atlanta traffic. Her parents are moving into an independent living facility, and we needed to take my pickup to bring back a few cherished family heirlooms that will not fit in their new home.

While there, I wanted to visit some cousins across the Chattahoochee River in Phenix City, Alabama. To my surprise, they turned my visit into a party with a cake and live entertainment by a singer who played the guitar and harmonica. He sang Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and a gospel tune he’d written himself.

After cake, music, reminiscing and farewell hugs, I headed west to check on a small family cemetery my sister and I still own in Hatchechubbee, Alabama. We’re establishing a non-profit cemetery association to transfer the deed to so the small plot can be cared for in perpetuity.

That’s a good thing because the cemetery was in rough shape. The fence line was covered in fall leaves, fire ant mounds adorned almost every gravestone, including my mother’s, father’s and brother’s. Grass was encroaching on several flat markers, and the headstone of my grandfather’s father had broken from its base and fallen over.

The gentleman who owns the surrounding land had agreed to take care of the cemetery, but given his age and how long it had been since I visited the site, I assumed he’d fallen ill.

I was right. Next door to the cemetery, four friends sat around a pile of burning leaves, drinking beer and laughing beside an old shotgun house standing on a few rock pillars. I approached the group and asked if they knew where the caretaker lived.

“He stays right over there,” the oldest gentleman said. “But he ain’t doin’ well.”

I introduced myself, and to my delight they knew several of my late relatives, speaking highly of them. “You wanna beer?” they asked, passing me a long-neck Corona.

“What the heck,” I answered. “Thanks.”

For the next 45 minutes, we laughed and told stories. My favorite came from the old man: “I remember one night walking by that cemetery in the dark and seen somebody in the graveyard,” he recalled. “I ran away so fast. I know about dead bodies. I used to work in a funeral home, and a body gon’ do three things. It gon’ blow up, pee and poop. That’s what they do. It’s natural. But sometimes they sit up.”

He had my attention. I sat up, too.

“You see this here bump?” he asked, pointing to a large knot on his forehead. “I got this bump 20 years ago, and it’s still here. I was working in the funeral home when a body sat straight up on the table. The spinal cord tightens and up they go. I was so scared I ran full speed for the door and pushed it, but I shoulda’ pulled instead. My head hit the door hard and made this bump right here.” He pointed again to the lump on his forehead.

Everyone broke into raucous laughter except me. (I think they’d had a few more Coronas before I arrived.)

Next, he told me about how he and another man were contracted to bulldoze an old house behind the cemetery, but when they arrived, there were too many snakes to do the job. “I was working with a man named Gary Williams. No way was we gonna knock it down with all them snakes. So Gary said, ‘Well, let’s burn it down then.’ And I said, if you burn down that house, I don’t want to be anywhere around. The fella who used to own it had a lot of ammunition in there. So Gary went back the next day by himself, poured gasoline around it and set it on fire. Well, soon enough he learned there was still bullets in there. He had to duck down behind the bulldozer blade. Bullets flying everywhere.”

Everyone laughed again, except for a young woman who was apparently his daughter. “Good thing you didn’t go,” she said. “You coulda got yourself killed!”

After a few more stories, I thanked them all again and turned to head to the caretaker’s house. “The gate gonna be locked,” the former funeral home worker said. “He’s ex-military, like special forces or something. Keeps the gate locked with a bunch of no trespassing signs. He’s a good man, though. Real nice.”

So instead of risking getting shot at myself, I gave the man my name and telephone number and asked him to have the caretaker call me. “Will do,” he replied. “You know, I lived in Ohio in the ’70s. Worked in Cincinnati making smoked sausages. Too cold for me. I had to come back to Alabama.”



When I returned to my in-laws’ house, my wife asked, “Where have you been?”

“Well,” I answered. “That’s a long story.”

Mitch@MimiVanderhaven.com