Final Destination

Post-Script: One can never know everything, and so some mystery always remains. In this case, I don't know how to explain the fact that, while my mother was buried here, the rest of my deceased family resides, across town, in an older cemetery. Perhaps it's explained by the fact that the older cemetery lacked grass, and my Dad wanted his wife to be interred someplace nicer. Or, perhaps there was no room in the family plot at the older place. Answers to questions like these remain unknowable.

When my Dad passed away a few years ago, that older cemetery was considered historic, and thus we couldn't inter him there, even though we owned the plot, and thus had to purchase another, in their newer section. Families are vulnerable at times like these and, while we don't want to think that we were taken advantage of, doubts remain. One thing's for certain: my Dad's at peace about it, whilst we might not be so much.

Considering the vastness of the American West, it's not necessarily such a wasteful thing that we have these cemeteries for our deceased, instead of, hypothetically, setting them afire on a raft down the Rio Grande, as might be done in India (were there enough water in the Rio Grande, that is); certainly not any more wasteful than the golf courses that dot our landscape. To me, the issue is more about the precious drinking water it takes to keep them green.

Photos via Panasonic Lumix G5, fitted with a film-camera-era Vivitar Series 5, 24mm, manual focus lens in Minolta MD mount. Not as sharp as the modern system lenses for micro-4/3, considering these modern lenses are "chipped," having firmware implanted that provides lens correction data to the camera body.

Typecast via Hermes Rocket. Man, I love this little typewriter. I was using a backing sheet of printer paper for this typecast, something I read about on the Typewriter Talk forums, and it did improved the imprint. I'm going to make this a regular habit. Another example of how, although we have these machines from a former era, we might not know all of the ins and outs of using them properly.

Bonus Image: Sometimes the proximity of the immediate environs surrounding such a peaceful place brings with it a certain amount of irony: