Who knew cemeteries could be so all-fired photogenic on Halloween?

As they say in some circles, I really "tied one on" yesterday, y'all.

TG took me 'taphing and I took four hundred pictures.

I have picked out fewer than sixty of them to show you.

Do you know how difficult that was to do?

I know you probably don't want to drop what you are doing and look at between fifty and sixty pictures.

It being Halloween and all that, and a Sunday.

However.

I promise you they're good pictures! And I do believe my commentary is sparkling. At least in places.

And you can always come back if you don't finish in one sitting.

Don't bother to leave a comment if you don't have time.

Just enjoy my pictures. That's all I ask. They're almost all clickable so you can see them bigger, in case you want to.

To begin with, we visited several cemeteries. I don't even want to bother you with their geographic coordinates except to say, they were all in downtown Columbia.

One was a Catholic cemetery; that's where you'll notice quite a few Irish names. One was a Lutheran cemetery, and that's where the German sounding monikers are. Our last stop was a Hebrew cemetery, and ... you guessed it! Jewish names.

We also hung around outside the Governor's Mansion for awhile and I think you'll like those pictures too.

If there are any graves in there, they're not marked.

My blogging buddy, Irene of Irene's Desk, remarked a few weeks ago that she wanted to see what our southern cemeteries look like when autumn comes.

(Irene lives in Canada; it's probably snowing there now. Here, we're still in short-sleeved mode.)

Well, today was the first day the temperature was comfortable enough AND there was finally color enough AND I had time to provide photographic evidence of fall coming to South Carolina cemeteries!

I hope you like the pictures, dear Irene.

I'm always arrested by broken tombstones -- especially those flush with the ground, never to rise again -- but today's were unusually beautiful.

Some are hanging in there by a thread, with the temporary help of a sinking base.

Some are one with the ground. A few more years and there will be no sign of them.

Somehow more heartbreaking still are those that have been mended. There's just something about it that makes me want to cry.

Some look strong and determined; others not so much.

Some create a shadow that appears more sturdy than the stone that casts it.

Some seem to have had a chunk removed, then apologetically replaced.

Others merely lean against their own broken bases with an air of resignation.

I noticed a lot of famous names today ... only I don't think any of them are THE famous person whose name they bear.

Like, John Dooly of the hang-down-your-head-and-cry folk lyric? I think that John Dooley had an "e" in it.

Charlie Chaplin?

Virginia Dare ... Kane? Not the first baby born in America, I think.

Ben Stein ... anyone? Bueller?

Ellen O'Hara ... but not mistress of Tara.

The flowers and foliage were all going out on a limb for me today too. There are so many late-blooming roses!

Do you see the butterfly?

The Governor's Mansion grounds drip with crimson.

Late-day-sun-spangled droplets are flung from a three-tiered fountain in the mansion's courtyard.

A handsome man posed for me! That's my TG.

Wrought iron was everywhere today.

From gates ...

... to benches (with curious kittehs) ...

... to more (and more) gates ...

... to cast-aside gates ...

... to ornate embellishments.

In cemeteries, the iron, so carefully and artfully wrought, gives extra beauty and a feeling of eternal safety.

At the end of the day, the gates don't keep anybody in ... only out.

There's some good reading to be had in cemeteries ...

... and much to see, from both far and near.

Cemeteries are, to me, places to ponder life's breathtaking brevity.

As the seasons, go the years.

How potentially interesting and unusual are our lives ...

... and how certain to end in only one way, speaking in earthly terms.

And so I thank you for spending part of your brief, busy life with me.

God bless you today and always.

We're not chicken

OK ... watch this.

Pretend the Famous Chicken represents President Obama (apologies to Ted Giannoulas, about whose politics I know nothing) and the umpire stands for The American Voter, poised to make a beeline for the polls on Tuesday, November second.

Go ahead! It'll be fun.

EJECTED! DEJECTED! NEVER RE-ELECTED!

Sweet. Lame-on chicken.

Ready, set ... not so fast

I despise Halloween.

Truly.

I hate the cobwebs hanging everywhere and all the monster masks and goofy costumes, and the animated creatures that suddenly go Booahahahahaha when you pass by them in the drugstore, their eyes lit up all red.

If I see one more Party City commercial set to the song Thriller, I'll scream.

I do not do Halloween. At all.

Be that as it may, I love to dress up and I've had a lifelong love affair with candy. 

And I've been told that I myself am scary.

I freely admit to a certain enjoyment of creepy stuff.

For example, I'm a regular reader of Quigley's Cabinet. That says a lot about a person.

Also I love Edgar Allan Poe.

Why, just today I read The Raven. I do that every year. I like this part:

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

You should read it all! Today! Or Saturday at the latest.

Also I love The Addams Family. Morticia's "look" resonates with me.

Like Morticia, black is my favorite color. I'd rather wear black than anything else. Plus which, I have dark hair and pale skin.

I like the theme song too. Very catchy. Especially all that finger-snapping.

Even now as I write, it's a dark and stormy night and that's totally my favorite kind of weather. Moody, gray, rainy. I never get enough of it.

TG thinks I'm crazy. He prefers endless sunshine.

Also I'm a sucker for a gothic arch ...

... or any gothic detail, for that matter.

And you know how I am about cemeteries and graves.

By the way? My article Bonny, Bony Bonaventure will be featured in the November edition of American Cemetery.

On Friday night I have a date with TG to watch The Revenge of Frankenstein on TCM at 9:30. I plan to wear black lace.

Before the season is out I'll watch (or at least have playing on the TV as I do other things), Johnny Depp's adorable voice-over of Victor Van Dort in Corpse Bride, his heartbreaking Edward in Edward Scissorhands, his murderous barber in Sweeney Todd, and if there's time, maybe even his star turn as the inane (and possibly insane) Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

For sure I'll watch his delicious portrayal of Constable Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow (has he ever been more gorgeous?).

There was a story in the news this week about one Karen Arbogast, a 51-year-old Washington State woman who suffered a fatal brain injury when her car was broadsided in an intersection by a FedEx truck.

Ten hours after the accident, Karen's doctors gave her husband and children the terrible news that there was no hope. Karen was brain dead.

The family said their farewells and released Karen's body for organ harvesting, which had been her wish.

She was taken to a hospital in Seattle for the surgery. 

Only, once there, medical personnel noticed that Karen had brain activity and showed signs of preferring to keep her organs. As in, she wasn't really as dead as they thought she was. 

Now the doctors say she has a one-in-four chance of recovering to the point of being able to live her life again.

I'd say that was a close one. I told TG, please don't give up on me after ten hours. I might just be resting!

At present I have three books on my bedside table. I "sip" at these books at bedtime. One of them is Mary Roach's bestseller Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

It's hysterically funny and wonderfully informative. I highly recommend it. 

If you like that kind of thing.

Last night when I was reading, I got to the part about how, a couple of hundred years ago, doctors were often not sure if a person they thought was dead, was really dead.

Apparently, being buried alive was a very real fear. I can understand that.

The unsettling prospect of live burials led to the construction of large, ornate waiting mortuaries where bodies believed to be dead were laid out and monitored.

The idea was, if the person you were keeping an eye on began to decompose, there was no doubt it was time for a funeral.

Sometimes a string, attached to a little bell, was tied to the maybe-corpse's finger so that if it moved even slightly, the bell rang and alerted someone nearby that they might have a live one.

Certain coffins were even rigged with bells, just in case.

That's where the expression "saved by the bell" comes from. 

(Some say the term has its roots in pugilism, but I prefer the not-dead-yet explanation.)

All this talk sort of reminds me of the Obama administration. We think it's dead but is it really dead?

I'm sure this is a scary time for them. It's a scary time for me.

November 2nd -- two days after Halloween! -- is the day, if all goes according to plan, this administration will be quasi-interred in a political waiting mortuary.

I don't think any little tinkling bells will be necessary, though.

And we'll all have a lot to be thankful for. Hello? November.

May the most monstrous presidency in the history of the United States rest in pieces. Boooooaaahhhhhahahahahahaha.

And may God bless America.

That is all.

True confessions of a city slicker

So last Saturday TG and I orchestrated a little family outing to a Fall Festival at McLeod Farms in McBee, South Carolina.

There was to be pumpkin-pickin' and hayrides and good food and music and all manner of festival-ish goings-on.

Audrey came home for the weekend, from Knoxville. Erica came home for the weekend, from McDonough.

TG, working in North Carolina, brought Melanie and Allissa home with him Friday night.

Stephanie came from Lenoir on Saturday to join us in McBee.

It was quite the logistical feat if I do say so myself.

Especially when you consider it's seventy-five miles from Columbia to McBee, and more than half those miles are not Interstate.

You have to get off I-20 East in Camden and wend your way to McBee on secondary roads.

But we made it.

And it was hot, y'all. Not as humid as a month ago, but still hot.

And it was exceedingly crowded (long lines, very long lines, for everything), which for some reason always takes me aback.

I do not like standing in lines. The only one I stood in all day was to pay for a loaf of fresh-baked sweet potato pecan bread, and it was worth it.

Allissa rode with TG and me; Melly hung out with her aunties in the second car.

You never heard a child ask "Why?" so many times.

Typical conversation ... this took place when we stopped to gas up the vehicles:

Allissa: What's Papaw doin'?

Me: He's putting gas in the car.

Allissa: Why?

Me: Because without gas, the car won't go.

Allissa: Why?

Me: Because cars run on gas and sometimes they run out.

Allissa: Why?

Me: Because you drive a whole bunch of miles and then there's no more gas in the car and then you have to get more.

Allissa: What's Papaw doin'?

Me: Allissa, I just got done explaining to you in excruciating detail what Papaw is doing. He's putting gas in the car.

Allissa: Why?

Me: ALLISSA! Because the car needs gas to go! I told you all of this!

Allissa: Okay.

Stephanie arrived at the farm ahead of us and had stood in line for a half hour to order lunch for the girls.

They chowed down on chicken fingers and french fries, no questions asked. Kids never wonder where the food came from. I think they believe in vittle fairies ... if they think about it it all, which is doubtful.

Then it was time to "drive" the antique tractors. Melanie was persuaded to try a Farmall. She lasted all of thirty seconds before wanting to get down.

But Allissa, the fuel-conscious one, knows nothing runs like a Deere. She couldn't get enough of "driving."

There were a plethora of vintage farm instruments. Melanie was inclined to prime an ornate pump.

Allissa "rode" in a motorized carriage with Aunt Audrey, then posed on the running board.

We toured "Mac's" antique museum, which is mostly stuffed with vintage automobiles, but has a lot of other cool stuff too. The collection is pretty extensive and all the cars are in fantastic condition.

A charming poster of Shirley Temple as a junior aviator presides over the parade of gleaming metal and glass.

A shiny black Ford Model-some-letter was my favorite. Very Public Enemies.

I wanted to take this machine home. Who doesn't need to know their wate and fate?

This barber chair was very Sweeney Todd.

The old-timey booster seat reminded me of a spider with, like, lumbago or something. Or maybe an arachno-contortionist with webbed feet or unilegs. You decide.

This geriatric soft drink machine took me back. They had these in country stores when I was a kid.

The girls were very good while we grownups looked at all the old stuff but they were more than ready to go back outside into fresher air.

Hotter air, too.

There were helicopter rides but we didn't go on one. We just watched. TG didn't think twenty dollars for a five-minute ride was a very good deal and I agreed. 

Five dollars for a twenty-minute ride would've been better. But you've got to love capitalism. This thing buzzed overhead all day long.

I never could figure out if the scarecrow was trying to get up or down the windmill, or what he intended to do with the broom. Somewhat reminiscent of Arnie's chronic hijinks in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Allissa eventually copped a ride on Papaw's shoulders. She insisted on pointing at everything. No doubt from her lips came an endless string of "Why?"s.

She ended up borrowing Audrey's shades.

Sweet, courageous horses pulled heavy wagons full of tourists all day.

There was a lot of dust and dirt. I do not like to be hot, standing in dust and dirt.

I think Melly was over it too.

Allissa was still living large, courtesy of a very patient Papaw.

Still pushing her borrowed shades up onto her nose.

Still pointing ... still asking "Why?"

It was my turn to ask "Why?" when I saw this:

But then, my thoughts were on feet at the moment because mine needed a bath. Did I mention all the dust and dirt? 

You should've seen the dirt coating my car ... which, by the way, got STUCK in that dirt. It looked dicey for a couple uneasy minutes.

TG had to use the handy "snowflake" traction button to get us out. We're city slickers; I admit it.

It was hot; it was dusty; it was crowded; it was hot. Did I mention it was hot?

But it was fun. It's now memories. I like that.

And it'll only get uglier

Fasten your seatbelts ... it's going to be a bumpy election.

Liberals ... just another name for crass, classless, clueless losers.

The caller is "not black or a Muslim" ... just an idiot.

I'm not suggesting she doesn't have a right to her opinion, and to voice it over the telephone, regardless of her race or creed. I'm saying she's out of line to characterize the man's wife and children as ugly.

And then they have the temerity to call us the haters.

If you still have the stomach for it, read about where Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) stands on the issues.

Can't spell the word "military" either, poor slob.

Still holding onto your cookies? Here's more disgusting fodder on Ellison.

May he be drummed out of office on November second, banished from polite society on November third.

Here's a video of his opponent, Joel Demos, the guy on the receiving end of that rude phone call.

The kids are his own. Cute.

Anyone calls 'em ugly to my face'll wish they hadn't.

Because see, there're two kinds of ugly ... ah. Never mind.