Pecans In The Cemetery

I was introduced to the joke at Sleeping Gardens: and other final resting places... The original source appears unknown but may have been a chain-mail email.

On the outskirts of a small town, there was a big, old pecan tree just inside the cemetery fence. One day, two boys filled up a bucketful of nuts and sat down by the tree, out of sight, and began dividing the nuts.

"One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me," said one boy.

Several dropped and rolled down toward the fence.

Another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle. As he passed, he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery. He slowed down to investigate. Sure enough, he heard, "One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me."

He just knew what it was. He jumped back on his bike and rode off.

Just around the bend he met an old man with a cane, hobbling along.

"Come here quick," said the boy, "you won't believe what I heard! Satan and the Lord are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls."

The man said, "Beat it kid, can't you see it's hard for me to walk." When the boy insisted though, the man hobbled slowly to the cemetery.

Standing by the fence they heard, "One for you, one for me. One for you, one for me."

The old man whispered, "Boy, you've been tellin' me the truth. Let's see if we can see the Lord."

Shaking with fear, they peered through the fence, yet were still unable to see anything. The old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bars of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of the Lord.

At last they heard, "One for you, one for me. That's all. Now let's go get those nuts by the fence and we'll be done."

They say the old man made it back to town a full 5 minutes ahead of the kid on the bike.

Dead Serious by Dan Kishkan

My family knows me well. They know me so well that while my father is working, two provinces over in British Columbia none the less, he actually stops to take photographs of cemeteries and brings back interesting things like this article:

Dead Serious by Dan Kishkan

It is a matter of local knowledge and not too much concern to anybody at all that there are two cemeteries in Nazko. One lies just north of the Reserve at Nazko in which the native people from the local area are buried. There is another eight or ten miles north of it where a number of long-ago non-Native residents have been parked.

 

It is the second cemetery that I'd like to talk about since it has been the cause of a few sleepless nights for some poor bureaucrat in Vancouver.

The cemetery is about two or three acres in size and is set on an east-facing slope overlooking the Nazko River. It sits in the middle of a grove of poplar trees and is haunted by grouse, rabbits, and the occasional groundhog. Moose, bear, and the odd deer wander by once in a while to check out the berry situation but other than that it is a pretty peaceful place.

There are somewhere between six and twelve permanent residents here but nobody really seems to know for sure. It's probably not all that important until the time comes to add someone, and that only seems to happen every ten years or so. Since nobody is sure how many residents there are, it stands to reason that nobody is exactly sure WHERE they are either. This could make digging a new grave an interesting experience.

The periodic bouts of insomnia suffered by this Vancouver person are due not only to the fact that he works for the government. That's bad enough, but this poor guy has to work for the Cemeteries Division, too. He went and sent us a form to fill out about the local graveyard and it ended up on my lap. I guess it is because I live a lived closer to the graveyard than most other folks; out here. I got a couple of neighbours to come over and help me figure it out and answer it. It wasn't that I thought that they knew any more than I did, but it seemed like there'd be safety in numbers.

Now cemeteries and government forms are not laughing matters, so we approached this with grave seriousness. The first question asked how many people were buried there. We replied that we weren't sure but there were no new holes, so nobody had left since the last time somebody had filled out one of these forms. We were going to add that nobody seemed to be dying to get in but thought that THAT might sort of upset this person.

The next question asked how we were managing the cemetery. We replied that we weren't managing it; the tenants were and they seemed to managing just fine.

The last part asked about finances. Now we thought about that pretty carefully because we figured the government people really worry about that sort of thing. We said that the tenants seemed, near as we could tell, to be pretty much financially secure. Secondly, we figured that, for anyone who wanted one, the hole would be free. They might want to pay someone to take the dirt out of it though. Lastly, we assured the Vancouver person that if anyone found anything valuable there, we'd be sure to let him know.

That seemed to cover it, so we sent it off. The form cam back about three weeks later. The gentleman in question had filled it out himself and included a copy and a note saying that this was how it must be done. We looked it over and agreed he'd done a fine job so we wrote that on the bottom and sent it back to him. That must have satisfied him because we never heard from him again.

I do wonder though, just what he'd think if someone decides to take up residence there in the next ten years and forgets to fill out one of his forms first. Were it me, I think I'd just lay back and enjoy the peace and quiet. And hope by doing so, I wouldn't be raising any hell.

Taken from "Porcupines, Politicians, and Plato." Dan Kishkan is a local resident working as a driver. Air Support Group Leader Ken Widdifield says he looks a lot like an out of costume Santa Claus.