I was first nonplussed till I figured out that "grave marker" is just the pastel term for tombstone. I think if the sign said "tombstones" I would find it less surreal. The house sits in burbank on the corner where Victory and Burbank Boulvards meet, across from Costco.
It inspired me to write a little poem, something a rarely do, since it's not my strength. Let us mark your grave,
And the time you'll take
To get there.
And the time you'll take
To get there.
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I'll let you in on a little secret. Grave markers, the flat kind are an invention of Forest Lawn. The maker (thats what he calls himself) felt that grave markers of the upright kind were gloomy. Flatten them and you have a park. If you haven't visited Forest Lawn Glendale, (outside of sad circumstances) it's a must see.
I just recently read about this, and the author also sited the Evelyn Waugh satire about funerals in So Cal. I hate the grave markers, they make a cemetary look like a filing cabinet. When I go (but that won't happen, will it) I want a big old marble monument. The kind you see at Mountain View (one of my favorite cemetaries.) Vanda, I liked the poem.
My graduate thesis was on Forest Lawn. really
Shit, in the company of a grad student, I should have said "cited." Busted.
But I love gloomy graveyards! Maybe it's the European in me, but I think cemeteries should be melancholy, time worn statutes, tombstones covered in moss, overgrown vegetation, old trees, weeping willows, the whole gothic nine yard. I do not think Forest Lawn have ever inspired a single ghost story.
Forest Lawn reminds me of a golf course. As a matter of fact, I think cemeteries of its kind should be turned into golf courses. It would be a great multi-use of land.
No, I'm agreeing Vanda. Plus, those grave markers do not have room for a decent epitaph. One of my favorite was on the tombstone of a French nobelman who shot himself. It said, "Tired of this eternal buttoning and unbuttoning."
Alas, if only they had zippers back then...
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