Excepting vs. Accepting

They will take gold bars, first-born children and possibly pounds of salt, but for god’s sake don’t give them actual US currency.

Note: a few days later this was changed to “accepting” so it turns out they would take cash after all. Also note that this gas station sign is a favorite sighting when traveling the long road (Lombard) to St. Johns. It’s always wishing people a happy birthday or congratulating them for something or other. It’s one of the treasures of Lombard street, as far as I’m concerned.

Highlights from Dead Relatives Tour 2011

Fun to say:

Another picture of a German grave just so I can hear Matt pronounce it.

As usual on the Dead Relatives Tour we visited my great-great grandparents (my grandfather’s maternal grandparents) and my grandparents’ (my mother’s parents) graves. New this year we bumped up over the hill from my grandparents’ cemetery to visit my great grandparents (my grandmother’s parents) graves. My great grandparents are buried at Skyline Memorial Gardens. We had to stop and get directions to the graves because the MAunts hadn’t be there in awhile. Although their remembering of “down that way” turned out to be true. Much to my delight the sections of the cemetery were named. The names were fabulously retro: Last Supper, Terrace of Serenity, Mediation, Prayer, Old Rugged Cross, Sermon on the Mount, Devotion, Gethsemane (I had to ask what that was) and Apostles, as well as others.

My great grandparents were thankfully not buried in Atonement (I’m betting that section had slow sales, except when purchased by long suffering wives as a good place for their not-so-great husbands to be laid to rest) but in Everlasting Life!

With the help of our handy map, we found the graves, and were sad to see that they had been neglected, apparently for several years. Both of them had sunk a bit and most of my great-grandmother’s was obscured by a thick coating of dried mud. We didn’t have anything to clean the gravestones with, so Aunt Pat arranged the flowers and we took leave. Next year we will bring some broom/mud scraping objects.