Graveyards, Snow Blowers, and a little nonsense....

Running late today, and I'm 90 minutes or so away from heading over to the local middle school to officiate a Girls JH double header between Celina and Fort Recovery.  I spent the morning at a local engine repair, lawn mower, and snow blower, dealer in Coldwater.  With winter arriving ahead of schedule we figured it's time to get a snow blower for mom's place.  She doesn't have that much to take care of, but my machine is way too heavy to drag over to her place in the back of the Jeep...to heavy and too big.  As luck would have it, they were out of the smaller 5 HP types, but they did have a trade-in that they had just gotten in.

A local church had just traded in a nice 2 year old Toro, 2 cycle(the type you mix gas with oil, not my favorite, but....), 5HP machine, that I could lift in and out of the back of the Jeep...although it's better on the back, with some help.  The price new, $699...the price used, $279.  The things runs like new, and looks the same, with very little use.  So hopefully both houses are set for the coming cold winter...snowy as well?  Time will tell.

The way the birds and rodents(Squirrels) are packing away the seeds and food, I gotta believe they see a long, cold, winter in this age of that fake science, called Global Warming Bullshit!

Whistling Past another Graveyard_____

Graveyards are a great place to work on family genealogy, that's how I first "met" my Great-Grandfather, Nelson S. Houseworth(1837-1887) in the Blue Creek Cemetery in Paulding County, Ohio.  Also all the Houseworth men that served in and survived the Civil War, are found in various locations around central and western Ohio.  But there are other graveyards that have nothing to do with family genealogy...today I took a short trip to one of those, between runs to the Snow Blower dealer. This one to one from my early years living near Montezuma.

I first noticed the Long Cemetery while hunting in my teen age years...it hat several old trees and a passel of old stones that were lying around in no particular semblance or order.  Not knowing the history, I am assuming it was the Long Family plot...in the 45 years since I first came across it while Squirrel hunting, it has been taken over by the township and now the remaining stones are in order, the weeds cut, and most of the trees taken down...to where there is just a single walnut tree today.

Old cemeteries that were abandoned were prime targets for teenagers, such as myself, to play pranks in...today those pranks seem stupid, even though most of the perps meant no harm.

I remember one Friday or Saturday night in the fall of 1967,  around Halloween probably.  My brother Mike, who was off in the Air Force, best friend David "Kim" Deeter, and a couple of other guys I knew, were riding around with in my 1962 Ford Falcon, when we stopped by the Long plots.   Many of the stones, as I mentioned were laying loose on the ground of the neglected family bone orchard.  Kim, who was to become one of 58,000 victims of "my" war, was just a couple of months away from his draft date with destiny...he would be KIA, in Vietnam with the Army, in April of 1968.  Anyway with innocent mischief on our hands, Kim picked out an abandoned stone that had the words "Son of Rachael" in scripted on it...the dates and other things I don't recall, but it was old, as are all the graves in this bone orchard are.  We put the stone in the back window of the Falcon, turned on two flashlights to shine on the it, and drove around Grand Lake and the Montezuma/Celina area for a couple hours, showing it off during the Hallowen season...then we returned the stone to the spot on the ground where we found it.

Even 43 years or so later, I can remember that night like it was last evening....those old stones are still there, now in better shape, as is the graveyard, than ever before...Sadly, David "Kim" Deeter is inscribed in a tombstone of another variety...The Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC:
http://thewall-usa.com/search.asp

Tomorrow, if I can get up the energy...I'll comment on the traitorous workings of a sorry little Private in this new Politically Correct Army, and his dealings that have led to the Wikileaks fiasco.

back later>>>>

Photos-The Long Cemetery, one of my early discoveries...The little snow last night, was not enough to fire up the Snow Machines...and most was melted by the time I visited the cemetery this afternoon.  Some of the stones are very readable...some not so much, but the death dates as far back as the 1820s and none more recent than the 1870s....