Very Odd Memory

A story in the news today concerns a headstone found in Richland Hills of an infant that was buried around 1900. People are scrambling to figure out who the child was. Twenty-one years ago, during a summer break from law school, I took a girlfriend home to Wise County to let her see where I grew up (the relationship quickly ended for obvious reasons.) Anyway, we had an afternoon to kill so I took her to those plateaus that are west of Bridgeport. You know, those small mountains that are flat at the top - the ones that you can see for miles but no one talks about. I had remembered an old cemetery being up there - and by "up there" I mean on the top of one of the plateaus. Being a little strange even back then, I took my unsuspecting girlfriend to that remote location. I had never actually been in the cemetery and, once we arrived, we found it to be in a state of total disrepair. Weeds were high. Most of the headstones were broken. The place seemed to be abandoned. But I remember seeing grave after grave of infants that had died at the turn of the century. Unless I'm crazy, I could swear that some of the headstones had dates in the 1890s. I've never met anyone that has been to that cemetery.