GOOSING THE GRIM REAPER
“O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling?”
MILFORD CEMETERY, MILFORD, CT — For Pilgrims and Puritans, life was a “vale of tears” and death a “grim porter.” Old New England graveyards are sobering places, their headstones sinking or askew, their dates suggesting lives suddenly shortened. But these somber old Yankees started an American tradition — having the last word and making it a mockery.
From a headstone in Milford, 1792:
Molly tho’ pleasant in her day
Was suddenly seized and went away
How soon she’s ripe, how soon she’s rotten
Laid in her grave and soon forgotten.
Now consider Beza Wood of Winslow, Maine — died in 1837 and condemned to lie beneath this parting shot:
Here lies one Wood
Enclosed in wood
One Wood
Within another.
The outer wood
Is very good:
We cannot praise
The other.
Death haunts us, awaits us, ends us. But in graveyards from sea to shining sea, hundreds of headstones prove that death need not have the last laugh.
Staid and sober headstones are still the norm, yet hardly a graveyard is without some wag’s epitaph or some statue designed to kick the Grim Reaper in the ass. Because what began in New England soon spread west.
From Ruidoso, New Mexico:
Here lies
Johnny Yeast
Pardon me
For not rising.
From Silver City, NV:
Here lays Butch,
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger,
But slow on the draw.
And from the town whose very name taunts death — Tombstone, AZ:
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a .44
No Les No More.
Certain epitaphs have become cliches, even if they were never carved in stone. Dorothy Parker’s headstone barely references the epitaph she wanted — “Pardon my dust.” Nor does Andy Warhol’s use the parting shot he suggested — “figment.” But some celebrities made their parting shots immortal.
Rodney Dangerfield — “There goes the neighborhood!”
Porky Pig voice man Mel Blanc — “That’s all, folks!”
John Belushi — “I may be gone but Rock n’ Roll lives on.”
Beyond words, some graveyard sculptures soothe death’s sting-a-liing. Somewhere amidst the ordinary gravestones of Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh is Lester C. Madden’s tribute to his favorite movie.
Folks in Paris, Texas would have forgotten furniture maker Willet Babcock had it not been for the statue above his grave. Yes, that’s Jesus. Yep, those are cowboy boots.
And if you’re ever in Logan, Utah and need a little refreshment, stop by the tombstone of Dr. Wade Andrews and his wife, Kay.
Though such wit is rare, a few graveyards welcome it. Key West, Florida, celebrated home of eccentrics and inebriates, has a cemetery featuring dozens of witty epitaphs. Among them: “Jesus Christ, These People Are Horrible,” “I’m Just Resting My Eyes,” and “I Always Dreamed Of Owning A Small Place In Key West.”
But no matter how one mocks death, it has the final say, anchoring us in the earth. Unless. . .
On April 21, 1997, a Pegasus rocket blasted off from the Canary Islands. No astronauts were on board, no living astronauts, at least. But as it soared into orbit, the rocket carried the remains of the first space corpses. One was LSD guru Timothy Leary, whose tether to the earth had always been tenuous. Another was Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, boldly going where no man had gone before. The two space travelers, still in orbit, have been followed by others turning death into a final voyage. Mercury Astronaut Gordon Cooper, James Doohan — Star Trek’s “Scotty” — and hundreds of others are still up there. . . Somewhere.
