remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return

Yesterday, after visiting the Farmer's Market, my new favorite place, I went to my local branch library to return a DVD. Outside my library I saw one of my classmates, an intern there, waiting for teens to show up for a Halloween program, a cemetery tour at this cemetery, which is right behind the library. I've always seen it back there (it's visible from inside the library but not the street) and knew it was relatively famous, but had never visited it. But, as no one was showing up for the tour, I volunteered to go along. Well, wasn't it interesting!

Not only did I see the final resting place of Marilyn Monroe (the most famous resident), Truman Capote, Jack Lemmon, Rodney Dangerfield, Natalie Wood, and others, but, and most interesting to me, learned quite a few things about the cemetery world. This is a very small and, for Los Angeles, old cemetery and it's right in the middle of the city, surrounded by office buildings. It was started in 1905 for Civil War veterans and now contains a wide variety of burial and cremation situations among some nice old trees and lawn. Given that it is now a site for celeb burials, the few "in ground" plots left run in the $100,000 range. If you want to go with the more cost effective option, they have a way for your ashes to be "co-mingled" with other people's in a "vault" and your name placed on a rock (a "pillow rock").

I learned that some people prefer to be interred above ground and some below. I learned that you should choose your tombstone granite carefully, because some types make it hard to read your name and other information. I learned that, if you choose to share your tombstone with another person, it is easy to engrave the second decedent's information on granite, but if it's in bronze, they must add a plate, because they can't recast it. Huh. Also, they only allow two potted plants per tombstone and no glass vases.

I have never really been one to be scared of cemeteries. I mean, we all die. No, really. I hadn't gone back there before because it seemed a little disrespectful to just wander around. But it was good to go on the tour with the woman who manages it (who was a very nice woman, wearing a black skirt suit with black tights and black Crocs--must be the tour shoes). I felt like I was seeing the real side of the cemetery, not the kitschy celebrity side.

It was also interesting to get a little window into the cemetery industry and see how people choose to be remembered. Even in death, money and fame are the most important things to some who wish to be buried there. Hugh Hefner has bragged that he has the space next to Marilyn Monroe in one of the mausoleums. Please, just burn me up and scatter me in a nice place, thank you very much.