Epithets

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:Born 1903--Died 1942.

Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down.

It was.

In a Thurmont, Maryland , cemetery:

Here lies an Atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.

On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery , Nova Scotia :

Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102.

Only The Good Die Young.

In a London , England cemetery:

Here lies Ann Mann,

Who lived an old maid but died an old Mann.

Dec. 8, 1767

In a Ribbesford, England , cemetery:

Anna Wallace

The children of Israel wanted bread,

And the Lord sent them manna.

Clark Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

In a Ruidoso, New Mexico , cemetery:

Here lies Johnny Yeast... Pardon me for not rising.

In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania , cemetery:

Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake.

Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:

Here lays The Kid.

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger

But slow on the draw.

A lawyer's epitap h in England :

Sir John Strange.

Here lies an honest lawyer,and that is Strange.

John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England , cemetery:

Reader, if cash thou art in want of any,

Dig 6 feet deep and thou wilt find a Penny.

In a cemetery in Hartscombe , England :

On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune.

Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls , Vermont :

Here lies the body of our Anna,

Done to death by a banana.

It wasn't the fruit that laid her low,

But the skin of the thing that made her go.

On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket , Massachusetts :

Under the sod and under the trees,

Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.

He is not here, there's only the pod.

Pease shelled out and went to God.

In a cemetery in England :

Remember man, as you walk by,

As you are now, so once was I

As I am now, so shall you be.

Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:

To follow you I'll not consent ... Until I know which way you went.

This Just Stinks

Editorial from my down-home newspaper this past week.

Another reason our Constitution stinks: The smell from up north.

10-09-2007
Of the many complaints lodged against our current constitutional arrangement, one of the most frequent is the difficulty that local governments face when they want to regulate things in their own back yards.
(Another criticism is the way special interests use that constitutional arrangement to keep local governments, or state government for that matter, from regulating what the special interests don't want regulated.)
Among the many things local governments struggle with is regulating nuisances such as junk yards, dumps, mean dogs that are on the loose, and treated human waste that's being used as fertilizer.
That's right.
While no one was looking — at least no one who would or could do anything about it — a Texas company worked out a deal with New York to take sludge from waste treatment plants up there, ship it to Alabama, treat it again, and then give it to farmers to use as fertilizer. They are doing this up in Limestone County.
Let's not blame the farmers. It is good fertilizer and it's free. Plus, the Environmental Protection Agency says it is not a health hazard.
But it stinks.
Not just that good, old-fashioned farm stink that is more nostalgic than nasty, but a stench that, according to someone living in the neighborhood, "smells 10 times worse than a pig barn."
The farmer is in a bind. For years, farms didn't have neighbors. Farms were way out in the country. But in recent years neighborhoods have encroached on farmland, so now the farmer must be concerned about what the folks next door think about farm smells. On the other hand, the folks next door need to be aware that farming has certain scents associated with it.
Human waste, however, should not be one of them. But what can be done?
Not much, unless the Legislature passes strict environmental standards covering this sort of thing or the Constitution is changed to give local government the power to deal with what is clearly a local matter.
Neither is likely to happen unless a lot of folks raise a big stink — bigger than what is already being smelled.

*I don't know about you, but this kind of makes me feel a little queasy. It's not the smell aspect of it that bothers me, but the thought of eating food grown with the use of human waste from New York. How can they be one-hundred-per-cent sure that it is safe? A million thoughts go bounding around in my head at the thought of that. What are your thoughts on the subject?

I Am Weary

I am weary. Weary of watching all the news on television, affirming in all of their words, what a terrible state our country is in. I am tired of hearing about kids killing, and harming other kids, and then taking their own lives. How did those lives get to be so awful, that the only alternative is to end it all, taking out as many others as possible before they do? What can be going on in the mind of a fourteen year old to make him want to kill and hurt someone? That's what's going on around the country, and that is what happened here, in my own backyard, yesterday. They say the kid had a troubled home life. They say that he had mental issues, and was on medication. They say that he was beaten up at school, and made fun of, and that he had been suspended from school the day before he went back and did his dirty deed. After all the shooting, he went to another floor, and there, looking out of the window, he had a clear view of the police vehicles arriving, and that's when he took his own life. Fourteen years old. What has happened to our children? What have we done to them? I know that there are some who will think that my sympathy is misplaced, that I should be feeling sorry for the victims. I do. But my heart breaks for this young man, who seemingly, felt that he had nothing to live for, and was so full of anger that he could no longer contain it. Why? That is what I want to know. Why have people become so self-absorbed that they can't give their children a good foundation, some kind of direction in life? I realize that it is sometimes neccessary for both parents to work, and that sometimes, there is only one parent, and most of the time that parent is the mother, but I have known families like that, and they still made time for their children, and by example, taught them values, and self-worth. I know how hard it is when you are a single parent, and trying to keep food on the table, and a roof overhead. I've been there, and I know that it is not an easy task. There was a time when we all cared about our neighbors, about each other. Now, it seems that we feel it is just easier to look the other way. Surely, there must have been someone, somewhere, who could have seen this coming. According to the news reports, the police had gone to the home just the night before because of an incident involving an older brother who had just gotten out of prison. Today, they arrested him. They had been called to the home at least one other time, when the fourteen year old was fighting with the mother. It is hard to place blame here. Who knows what hardship she was going through--the obstacles she was trying to overcome? I don't know the answers. I only know that my heart goes out to all involved. I wish we could all get back to the time when we cared for ourselves, and each other. When, if we saw someone in need, or hurting, we tried to help. A time when our own homes were our havens, our streets were safe, and life had value. The hue and cry now is, "Take back our streets, take back our town," but I'm afraid it's a little too late now--and it's falling on deaf ears.