It’s my favorite time of the year again. Well, Christmas is probably my favorite for sentimental and religious reasons but Halloween is up there. For the past few years I’ve had a “haunted basement”. My daughter would invite 6-8 of her best friends for a creepy night of fun. It wasn’t hard scaring third-graders but now that she’s more mature (and boring) my basement will remain what it currently is – full of junk, spider webs and stained glass.
No balloon vampire bats, moaning ghosts on fishing line, plastic glow in the dark skeletons, smoke machines or strobe lights. I have to come clean. The party was more for me than her because I loved transforming my basement into a haunted dungeon, telling ghost stories and making little kids scream one night every year. Well, I’ll only have to wait a couple years for my youngest child to be old enough to scare the pants off of! It’s nice having two kids almost 7 years apart in age. I get to relive and repeat the good parts all over again and appreciate it.
For this year, I decided to have some good old fashion Halloween fun myself by visiting Greenwood Cemetery – by myself. I visited it last year but never stepped foot out of my car. The video of it from then is on the site. Yesterday, I walked through parts of the cemetery and took pictures of some of the most interesting tombstones and mausoleums.
At first it wasn’t scary at all. I thought of it as a history lesson. “Wow, this person was born in the 1700′s. How cool!” The “Who’s Who” of early Decatur were all there. It was like visiting the Decatur Club, the postmortem version but more lively and interesting. I was near the maintenance garage and traffic from nearby roads could still be heard. That was comforting. “What ghost would come out so close to the entrance? How lame! There’s nothing scary about this place. People just make up stuff.” I thought to myself. However, the deeper I went into the cemetery, the more creeped out I became. I quickly understood why that place has such a reputation. Every acorn dropping from a tree was a footstep behind me. Squirrels skittering by and up the trees were corpses climbing out of their graves. The wind blowing through the trees were voices from beyond scaring the living daylights out of me! My imagination was running off with my spine and senses. Still, I plunged on and braved it out.
I pulled the car over and walked up a steep embankment to take a photo of a large Celtic cross in the Powers’ section. It smelled really bad there, which isn’t really a good thing in a cemetery. Some kind of rotting fruit was covering the ground ( I think persimmons) making it a treacherous, stinky and slick journey. I took photos of the cross and an above ground burial vault for one of the Power’s kin. Maybe it doesn’t bother some people but knowing a dead person is only a few feet away from me with only a concrete slab separating us, kind of freaked me out. I didn’t stay in that area very long. As I walked back to the car my right foot slid beneath me and I skidded on my knee, down the embankment and towards the road. It hurt! Actually it startled me more than it hurt. The terror of realizing that I could be stuck in Greenwood Cemetery, alone, with a broken leg, next to stinky trees and dead people filled my mind. All those Troy Taylor stories crossed my mind. I got up fast. I didn’t care how much it hurt. It didn’t matter if my right leg was now attached to my left shoulder; I was getting back to that car!
As I was driving I thought, “I’m going to be writing about this tomorrow on my blog. I hope those people who read it appreciate what I’m going through right now for a good story!” You better! I drove on and just around the bend, from my persimmon tumble, was a very steep hill. If my car were to go off of it, well let’s just say I would find my name in a Troy Taylor book next year. Those are some of the steepest hills in Decatur. I really don’t know how people visit the graves of people buried there. They would need a harness and rope tied to a tree to keep from rolling down to the river. I think there was a river down there. I didn’t look that close. My car was hugging the left side of the road.
I quickly made it back to the cemetery gates, relieved. I stopped and took the time to look at my leg, which I hadn’t even bothered to check in my mad dash to getting the heck out of there. The skin from my right knee, leg and foot was scraped but not bleeding. My leg was throbbing in pain and is still a little sore but it wasn’t broken. Before I left, I got out to take a couple photos of the Busher mausoleum. I admired it for its two lions which adorn the front. One is awake and frisky looking. The other one is sleeping. I want sea lions on my mausoleum, just for the record – assuming one day I become a billionaire. I don’t want any angels! Those statues are so creepy looking! Go take a gander at the Mueller mausoleum and you’ll know what I mean. C-R-E-E-P-Y!
Anyway, it was an interesting afternoon and I would love to go through the cemetery again with a guide who could tell me stories of who’s buried there. I really think a brochure should be printed up for visitors to take with them on a self-guided walking tour. Put the brochures in the Transfer House. It would be a fun thing to put together.
I didn’t see any ghosts. Of course, I didn’t stick around long nor look very closely at anything in particular. If I thought I had seen a ghost, my scream would still be circling the planet this afternoon. If ghosts are there, they’re probably still laughing at the sight of me falling down that hill. Well, anything for a good laugh for Decatur’s past, present and future generations!
I triple-dog dare all of you to walk through Greenwood Cemetery alone, like I did and share your experience!
———Click on the photos to see larger view.———
Creepy!
I thought these were the coolest headstones ever until they stood up and started moving!
