Thus, I've always got a ready supply of newsprint to spread as a drop cloth whenever there's a painting effort underway in the house. And since I'm the one who does these efforts, and the one who read and stacked up the newspapers in the first place, I still find myself re-reading the papers I've selected to be dripped on.
I remember reading Russell Baker years and years ago who described household painting as a great way to review the news you think you've read, but have surely missed something of. Rereading articles, or landing on ones you might have missed, does delay the paint project a bit, but I've always found a second crack at the news to be rewarding.
There are two ways you can be rewarded. One is to glance at a story that seemed so important only a week, or month ago, but that by now has absolutely no punch left. Heard about that...the election didn't turn out that way, did it?...there really wasn't any reason to worry about what Brexit was going to do to us. We've already had the bad weather that was predicted and reported on. What's left?
And there's the chance that you will find something you either completely missed, or have already forgotten about, but has now grabbed your interest.
The small paint project I'm in the middle of right now in the kitchen rewarded me today with a second chance to catch a summary of books that the Wall Street Journal's weekend edition was describing.
Aside from reading obituaries, I have found visiting cemeteries to be interesting. Not in any morbid sense, but in a sense of gleaning some nuggets of history. Years ago I took a black and white photo of a row of headstones in a Maspeth cemetery that returned a great shot of a flight birds being reflected in the smooth granite.
I have a first cousin who is buried in historic Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn. As any reader of this blog should know by now, I was never informed of my cousin's demise five years ago, until perhaps a year had gone by after his death. Thus, I've never been to Green-Wood, and now look forward to going inasmuch to see what his daughters did for him, as to wander the grounds. Green-Wood is so historic that even when it first opened in 1838 people went there on Sundays for picnics.
So, what did today's reread of the news deliver? A summary of books that I probably did glance at in a weekend edition of the WSJ, that other paper that people don't seem to get. You can really only get it with a heavy home delivery discount. As much as I enjoy reading the paper, I see nothing in it to justify its $4.00! newsstand price. Rupert Murdoch is nuts.
I missed the short summary with a two-page example from the just released book, '199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die, ' ($28 Black Dog and Leventhal).
Writing about cemeteries is not new, other than perhaps suggesting there are 199 of them to see before it will probably be impossible for you to see them, at least in the corporeal state of the living before you pass on.
One hundred ninety-nine does seem like a tall order to view. I'm sure you can approach it regionally, or by country, inasmuch as international repositories are highlighted. One cemetery is described as "romantic" (till death do us part?), the Bonaventure in Savannah, Georgia. Gettysburg gets mentioned in the summary, as well as the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt.
There is the notably unusual in Hartsdale, New York, where 700 people have their ashes buried with the remains of their pets. This reminds me of St. Rose's Catholic cemetery in Freehold, New Jersey where many members of my wife's family are buried and where St. Rose's parish priest, Father Coffey put his dog Heidi, marked with a footstone. Since the cemetery is supposed to be consecrated ground, we later learned Father Coffey's canine was exhumed and placed further outside the ground's perimeter. Every dog may have their day, but not for eternity.
I have a friend who is a Civil War history buff who makes trips to Gettysburg every now and then, as much to feel the place as to take in a reenactment of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. This same friend, after retiring, made a point to go see Grant's Tomb in upper Manhattan.
I must admit I've never been to Grant's Tomb, but I do know who is buried there, and do especially pay him my respects whenever I get lucky enough to cash a winning voucher at the racetrack and am rewarded with a couple of $50 bills with his portrait on them.
At that point, Grant is my favorite president.
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