David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Roadside Grave

Imagine having a gravestone planted in front of your home just a few yards from the door, and so close to the road that it’s easily seen by passersby. That’s exactly what you’ll find along the curved walkway to an eighteenth-century house on Merryall Road in New Milford, Connecticut. Is it historically intriguing, a responsibility to care for, or creepy? Maybe it’s all of that and more. At the very least, it must tie the record for the world’s smallest cemetery, if you can use that term for a single grave.

Situated at the base of a mature tree, it’s a simple stone with an arched top, stained and darkened by more than two centuries of New England weather. “Ruby, wife of Grishom W. French, died May 14, 1812,” reads the inscription. It set my curiosity afire.

Home burials, I knew, were not uncommon two hundred years ago, but were usually behind a house or at the edge of what was once a cultivated field. Typically, the plot had several family members and was often surrounded by a stone wall. Why was Ruby alone and so close to the road? Who was Ruby French and of what did she die? Could it have been a disease like smallpox that required a quick interment? Was there an actual body buried on the spot, or was it just a memorial monument?

Landscape Forgeries

We crave authenticity, but often settle for imitations in the objects with which we surround ourselves. We believe in the real deal, but put up with simulated materials that sometimes look   foolish.

Not far from my home, there’s a huge telecommunications monopole poorly disguised as an escapee from a grove of giant California redwoods. Standing on a hill with ersatz branches bearing pretend conifer needles, it towers over the surrounding Lilliputian forest. More distracting and uglier than an unadorned steel pole, it calls attention to a ridiculous idea. It screams: I’m a fake.

Along the same road some miles distant, is a hollow, gray lump of plastic articulated to look like a boulder. It hides a utility installation in front of a shopping center. At first, I thought it was a joke since it’s obviously not fooling anyone. But no, it’s a serious attempt to hide an unsightly electrical connection with an even more hideous container meant to look natural. Even a young child would not be deceived. Their plastic toys are much better made and do not masquerade as the real thing. The usual gray or green metal cabinet, however bad-looking, would have been, much better. At least some talented artist could paint it with a clever design.