Daily Newsie

Sometimes I think my life could not possibly get any more random.

The thought occurred to me again this morning as I waded through shoulder-high weeds in an abandoned cemetery, keeping an eye out for groundhog holes and trying not to step on goat excrement with my borrowed knee-high bright-pink rubber boots — because, yes, there was a goat in this cemetery. It had been put there to eat the weeds around the headstones: A good idea, considering pretty much any other animal would lumber over them, knocking them down and grinding them to pieces.

The goat incident happened as dear Linda, from my last post, and I were touring abandoned and neglected cemeteries in the county, trying not to step on knocked-down, cracked-to-pieces headstones. She brought boots for me, which was very nice as I had, in my typical fashion, come severely underdressed for the occasion.

We’d been assured by a county employee that said goat was quite friendly, but I was still wary. I scanned the stones for it as we pulled up, and saw a floppy-eared, white head pop out from behind a headstone. It stared at us with interest, but unmovingly, perhaps thinking we couldn’t see it if it stayed still. But I was doubled over with laughter because it was so darn cute, and its sproing-ing away from us as we approached made me laugh even harder. (Later, I looked over at a slight knoll to see a little goat head poking up from the weeds, which made me dissolve into giggles again.)

So my Sunday story is about neglected cemeteries, and how much it sucks that people don’t bother to keep up with them. Before the goat cemetery, we’d looked at both a totally unkempt cemetery and one that’s a work in progress — the previous burial ground was rampantly overgrown and littered with broken headstones, a shame considering it’s the family cemetery of Maj. Gen. Thomas Sterrett, who fought in several wars, but the latter was shaping up nicely.

Social importance aside, it’s terrrible to see any cemetery in bad condition. After today, I’m happy beyond belief that perpetual care cemeteries exist, and that my loved ones are buried in them. No one deserves a forgotten or neglected gravesite — no one.

I’m still laughing about the goat, though.