Saturday, October 10, 2015

Cemetery Sighting

There's a word for people who, well, love cemeteries: taphophilia.  

While that's not exactly me, I do find burial places interesting, even fascinating, and explore them whenever I can.  I always see something novel or puzzling, and come away wondering all those W words: who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why.

This is my latest find:

Image credit Gary, from cemetery beside the Butcher Shoppe on Stouffer Avenue, Chambersburg, PA (may be called Stoufferstown Cemetery)

Bronze military flag holders are probably familiar to most folks, especially those of WWII vets and the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) ones honoring the graves of Union vets of the Civil War.

But this is the first I've ever seen of Spanish-American War vets. Note the "CUBA" at the top.  I need to return to take some more photos: the day I snapped this was blindingly bright and sunny, and I had an impatient little one in tow.  Plus, although this grave is literally right beside the street, it's tucked into in a blind fenced corner with limited access.  Thus I cannot even tell you who is buried here--I just focused on the bronze Spanish-American War veterans' marker.

If you want to read a bit more to catch the flavor of this interest, I encountered an couple of blogs you might want to check outs:

A Strange Case of Taphophilia
The Strange Hobby of Graving

As an aside, from the second link above I note how aficionados of this "hobby" seemingly refer to themselves as "gravers."  I get it--when I was in my teens and 20s I was an avid caver and it always drove me absolutely nuts when people would use the word "spelunker."

People who cave (yes, that's a real verb) never use the word spelunker.  NEVER.  Guess a similar process holds true for taphophiles.


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