Oxford, North Carolina

Screens That Changed Our Lives ~ The Calculator:  During her life, the pencil gave way to the calculator, and the drudgery of arithmetic diminished just a bit. Is the pictorial display on this headstone a coded thank-you note? Or was she a calculating person? Probably the former. Elmwood Cemetery. [2013]

Grand Forks, North Dakota

Screens That Changed Our Lives ~ TV:  He must have been fully grown by the time television entered his life. Yet, it seems to have become one of his best friends. After all, it brought baseball to his living room and he got a chance to see the Minnesota Twins win twice during his lifetime! Talk about reminiscing: Do you remember when (a) broadcasts were in black and white? (b) programming ceased at midnight? and (c) no one could get more than three channels? Memorial Park Cemetery. [2012]

Port Allen, Louisiana

Sectarian Portals ~ Methodist:  How do you explain the above-ground vaults? The slight rise to the left is a levee. The level of the Mississippi is above the level of adjacent land. Think what that means for burial practices in this part of Louisiana. Gulf Coast hydrography requires adaptation, a new take on human-environment relationships. Scott United Methodist Cemetery. [2011]

Graceham, Maryland

Sectarian Portals ~ Moravian:  The Moravian Church was the original Protestant Church. It began with the protest of Jan Hus in the Czech lands of the Holy Roman Empire. After Hus was burned at the stake, his followers organized the Bohemian Brethren in 1457. They were wiped out in their homeland, but survived in the 'New World' where they established parishes in states such as Maryland. Do you know what is unusual about their cemeteries? Graceham Moravian Church Cemetery. [2006]

West, Texas

Sectarian Portals ~ Roman Catholic:  The railroad funneled Czech immigrants to West, Texas, in the 1880s. Last month, 14 people lost their lives in an explosion at the fertilizer plant in West. The remains of some passed through this portal to be interred in the town's Roman Catholic cemetery. The gates of St. Mary's were the last before the Pearly Gates. St. Mary's Cemetery. [2012]

Prattville, Alabama

Poet-ery in the Cemet-ery:  In a hundred years, "A Poem for Grandma" will still be there for all to read. In a hundred years, professional poetry will have disappeared into the digital ether. In a hundred years, cemeteries may be the best museums of 21st century human relationships that we have. Memory Gardens Cemetery. [2013]

East Gwillimbury, Ontario

Poet-ery in the Cemet-ery:  Erato dwelleth here. "Erato who?" you say. The Muse Erato, the daughter of Mnemosyne, the mother of our memory. Mnemosyne dwelleth here. She touches every stone, but does not work alone. Sometimes, she uses her little princess of poetry to commemorate the eternal nature of love. Queensville Cemetery. [2010]