Ghost Upon the Floor

I apologize for not writing here as often as the Ghost should. I woke up from a dream last night, and realized that I had  been dreaming about this segment from Disney's "Fantasia." Not only is this piece a segment in the animation and classical music melding film from 1940, but pieces of the famous "Night on Bald Mountain" segment often showed up in the "Disney's Halloween Treat" specials I've written about before-- and, thus, the images seen in my childhood have forever been burned in my psyche.

 I can't tell you when the last time I either saw this segment or heard the music by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Yet-- last night, I was dreaming of the big, dark, evil creature atop the mountain, and the lonely, lost tormented souls wandering the earth being pulled to his dark energy.

 Watching is segment now, I never realized the story concludes with the light triumphing over the dark with those of the light singing "Ave Maria." Apparently, the fascinatingly creepy images of a demon summoning skeleton souls rising up from the gallows made the more dominant impression on my child self than the portion's conclusion. And also apparently, if I am dreaming of these skeleton horses and their grim-reaper riders, I need more Halloween in my life; if these pictures which so interested me and I so loved from the moment I first met them are rising from my sub-conscious to visit me at night.

 Earlier in January, I ended up one Saturday in a section of Forest Lawn I'm not often in. Near one of the cemetery's lakes, there is a section filled with large, more modern mausoleums and statues-- some of which I have photographed before. Behind a row of medium sized mausoleums is a growth of trees and a riverbank, which leads to one of the quieter parts of the creek inside the cemetery. The spot is a safe little place ideal for quiet, thinking, calm.

 But I had never noticed what you can see there, up at the top of the hill on the opposite side of the area. One would think I hadn't noticed the mausoleum at the top before because of the heavy trees which, with their leaves, must surround and shroud the hill during the spring, summer and fall months.

 The mausoleum stood at the top of the hill, imposing. As I started to climb up the hill it stands on, I realized I'd never been up there before. And I'd picked the perfect day to start. The photos don't show how steep the hill actually is, I believe, and how difficult it was to climb through a fresh inch of snow up to the top. A newer section of the cemetery, most of the stones along the way were new, fresh and modern-- and contrasted with what lay at the top.

 Up close, the mausoleum is even larger than I'd expected. Though several random, separate markers populate the hill at the top, none appear connected to the mausoleum which bears no name. The Greek symbols/lettering for the Alpha and the Omega decorate the piece above the door-- and that is all. I searched for a name plate, a marker or something bearing a name, to no avail. Barring the slight possibility that something lays on the ground around the structure, the monument appears to be nameless. Once again, as so often within the cemetery, I was wondering. "Who were you?" 


 From the mausoleum, you are able to see much of this area of the cemetery. All of the section around the lake is visible-- and across the creek, to the first of the older sections of the cemetery, such as the one where the Pratt Monument lies. Behind the mausoleum, there is another steep hill down to the creek, with the cemetery's chapel directly on the other side.

 At the top you hear everything. All the sounds of the cemetery. The creek running around you, completely, surrounding you. The ducks and the geese from by the bridge. The wind in the trees. The silence of being in the middle of the vast cemetery. On this hill with what likely is the largest mausoleum in Forest Lawn, the mausoleum without a name.




You may view my photo album of the Hill here:

Forest Lawn, Hill, January 15, 2012

Almost a year ago, one of my Forrest Lawn postings was about the famous Forrest Lawn buck, and his guarding of a goose and her goslings, while they incubated and hatched. The story of nature's simple beauty and dignity was often included on local news reports, and Forrest Lawn went so far as to install a 24 webcam for people to watch the mother goose and her deer protector.

Happy Birthday, Edgar. Today, the man-- who's work I was initially drawn to in childhood because it was dark, different, and drawn back to as I grew older because I came to realize so many of the things he understood so beautifully-- would have been 203 years old.

Image: Associated Press

 There's something sadder about this birthday, however; a sadness one might see Poe himself as having dreamed up. The man who lived his life and wrote his work tormented by and fighting against the raven-- that specter of eternal sadness, of absolute death-- would, I think, find this almost fitting. While Poe's work has gained him an immortal status in the literary canon and following throughout the world and history, it is the personal nature of his writing which, I believe, draws readers time and again to him.

 And that has much to do with the tradition of the "Poe Toaster." As I have written about here these last few years, from the 1940's until 2009, an unknown man dressed in black would, in the early hours of the morning night of Poe's birthday, leave a bottle of cognac with a rose at the poet's grave.

Fans of Edgar would wait all night to witness the event, and this tradition lasted more than 60 years. In the 2000's, however, it became rumored that the original toaster had passed away, and left the tradition to a son or some different person. This new toaster created some controversy, including notes indicating political beliefs and opinions on sports teams-- which, it appeared, seemed to go a long way in turning many off to what the tradition had become.

 While people have gathered to keep watch for Poe's toaster these last three years, no such man in black has shown. And this year the Poe House and Museum curator declared the tradition officially over. Though I doubt that declaration will have much sway over the die-hard fans; people who, I can so easily see, would return year after year to the Baltimore cemetery, just in case the toaster were to return for Edgar. 

 I hope one day I'm one of them.

I've been spending yet more time than usual at Forest Lawn. For the last few months, I've fallen back into running, and on the weekends-- or the odd weekday I am not at work before the gates close at 5PPM-- I take my run through the winding, gorgeous hills of the cemetery. A blessing and a curse for me, I often stumble upon striking monuments I have never seen before, and unfortunately am quite a distance away from my car and camera. Some of them I come back for after my run, and most I remember exactly where I found them and am able to take some photographs.

 For a few weeks of running, I kept seeing the top of the Parker Monument, making a mental note of it, and (quite frankly) forgetting about it. Not until I came back with my camera for a stone nearby did I take a second, true look at this monument-- and realize that it is one of the more arresting pieces of statuary in Forest Lawn. I see many standards of monument art, and fall in love with them. Tropes such as the heavenward pointing finger, the books resting on stone trees or even the four angels such as those who adorn the Pratt Monument, are repeated, sometimes often.

 I've never before seen anything like the Parkers' statues. A full, likely male figure-- suited and cloaked-- with a faded stone face, stands atop a base. The large stone bust of an older woman, Laura Parker (1803-1888) decorates the front, and to the sides on her left and right, two differing male busts stand (appearing to float), with halved profiles. The detail on the statuary of the base has beautifully stood the test of time. There is a small stone, impossible to read without a rubbing, which stands in front of the monument. The last fully legible date, under Laura's, name and likeness, is 1888. Unless the monument was erected much later than the last known death, the stone monument is, at the youngest, 123 years old.

 Part of my affinity for cemeteries is, as I've likely written about here, the beauty that is the living's tributes to those who have been lost. I wonder what it was that caused the Parker Monument to be made. Was it Laura's idea? Or one of these men-- her husband? Brother? Father? Sons? The family set up of a father, mother and two sons would appear the most logical-- but noticeably absent are any spouses the sons may have had. I wonder who the artist may have been, in 1880's Buffalo, NY, who had the original idea of the halved profiles. I wonder who these people were; what they did, what may be remembered beyond the stone, and what is not. Some of the stones I find at Forest Lawn are readily available on Goggle, with articles or at least brief summaries with some information on these long ago people. Not the Parkers. Searches on multiple search engines have returned only information on another person with the surname of Parker who is interred in the Red Jacket monument, and an entry in a publication from the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society which mentions a Laura Parker, who's father was a general in the Civil War. The time frame certainly fits-- and, possibly, it may be the general standing on top of the stone. But I have found nothing concrete to confirm these Parkers are the same Parkers from the stone in Forest Lawn.

 I will keep looking, and post any updates I may find.

 View my Photo Album of the Parker Monument here: 

Forest Lawn, Parker Monument, 12-03 & 12-10-11

 The season of the ghost is now upon us. Again? I've written about this before, of the uncanny connection between the Christmas holiday and the day which is the reason for this blog existing. The progression is a natural, if not often thought of one; All Hallow's Eve is celebrated on the verge of the major change, the summer's abundance ending, with the fear and knowledge that the end is coming, the nights growing longer, on the ever chilling wind. Halloween leads into the season where our weather is (in climates which allow) the coldest, the most severe, the darkest. And this is where Christmas happens.

 Christmas itself is a study in contrast. What is generally celebrated as the feast of light, good-will and peace among women and men happens in the dead of winter, when the earth and world are barren and frozen. Families travel to be together during the times of the year which can bring the harshest weather for traveling, and there is a mad rush to give-- to others, our family and friends.

 I think Charles Dickens lighted onto this concept of what Christmas was, and penned "A Christmas Carol." For the modern world, it's hard to imagine a Christmas season without "A Christmas Carol"-- whether in the original novella form, or the numerous film and television adaptations the classic has seen. What would appear the definitive story about the celebration of Christmas is, frankly, a story where a miserable man is literally haunted by Christmas personified as actual, from-the-grave ghosts. In other words, "A Christmas Carol" is about a man, Ebenezer Scrooge, who is so miserable and cold to the world he lives in Christmas sees no choice but to terrify him, and shake him out of his wicked ways. While Scrooge is alive, his soul is dead. And while his ex-business partner Marley is dead, he returns to Scrooge with a message more alive than the both of them.

 It would appear Mr. Scrooge needed a little Halloween to show him what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

 What works so perfectly about the tale is that Christmas is so full of ghosts-- the ghosts of our past, our childhood, those and that which have come before. The year-ending season is a time to stop. And think. About the Christmases of the past- who was with us, what we might have done, and what we may have wished we had done. While Marley serves as a frightening specter to Scrooge because, in life, Scrooge knew him, and now must witness the ghostly fright that is his existence after death-- the Ghost of Christmas Past haunts Scrooge (and us) because of the many forms the ghost takes. Often depicted as a candle, or with either a candle or candle-stopper, the ghost always haunts, fragile and fleeting, because she was here-- and will always remember. Never be able to be changed.

 Her successor, the Ghost of Christmas Present, was and has continued to be a manifestation of the modern Christmas spirit-- a very much St. Nicholas/Santa Claus type of spirit-- bearded, joyful and abundant in laughter, good will (and size.) But at the same time, the ghost is deeply reflective, offering biting critiques on society, in addition to his jovial nature. This ghost's haunting is different-- haunting to Scrooge and us all by making us aware of our surroundings-- the joy of the season, the suffering of the less fortunate in the world, like the Crachitt family. And lastly, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come haunts us when we think of the ghosts of the past, the ghosts of the present-- and what they mean if they remain unchanged. This ghost, nearly always depicted as a Grim Reaper or similarly hooded figure (and, in an original twist in the recent Disney animated adaptation, as simply a shadow never seen) scares-- or, rather, makes him aware-- Scrooge into the knowledge of the nature of his ways, by literally bringing him to the grave. Where all the memories of Christmases past and present will end, without opportunity to change them for the better.

 And so. While Christmas has become not only a Christian holiday, but developed a secular following and celebration around the season of giving gifts-- I wish you a Merry Christmas. And all the comes with it.

Happy haunting, if your need be.



Images: Behind the Thrills & Brett Helquist

 As the holly, the ivy and the mistletoe go up and the snow soon begins to fall, I thought I'd post a set of photos I took at Forest Lawn this past October.

 The following I took during the early afternoon of October 17. I had just discovered the different kinds of black and white options on my new camera, and enjoyed looking at old friends such as Silas Henry Fish, the Pratt monument and others through eyes of black and white.

 Part of me was torn between being able to capture Forest Lawn at it's most beautiful peak-- deep, bursting autumn oranges and reds and leaves--and capturing a different view, by using the black and white.

 The weather was a bit odd. The sun shone high and bright, while enormous gusts of wind rushed across the grass, taking leaves from the trees. All Hallow's Eve was only a few days away, and the cemetery was  extremely quiet. The only other person I saw was a Forest Lawn caretaker driving by.



You may view my Photo Album here:

Forest Lawn, 10-17-11 (Early afternoon wind, Black and White)