Tombstone Kids

We'd had to break in through the locked chain-link gate at Canemah
cemetery, while hiding from neighbors who could have seen us just by
looking out their windows. My friend wanted to show me a 'cool' place,
and this cemetery was where he'd brought me.

The grass was tall with trash strung through it and a tree had dropped
a big branch during a previous storm. Some of the headstones were
turned over, and others were lying broken in several pieces. Some of
them had no headstones at all. Entire families laid there, and all of
them were missing one parent; either mother or father, and it made me
wonder if there was anyone left to bury the missing parent. They'd died
all within months or weeks of each other. This told me of tragedy, not
war or natural death; there must have been illness.

Vandalizing graveyards had become 'the thing' to do for youngsters out
looking for trouble to conspire in, and it was happening all over the
city. They didn't have any respect for something that wasn't theirs. It
saddened me, looking around at what they'd done. That was the night
that began the Tombstone Gang.

I spoke with the high school football team, and suggested that we form
a 'gang' of sorts, and go fix-up these graveyards. One of the boys had
been previously arrested for 'tagging', and he and his brother thought
my idea was laugh-out-loud funny, but they took a consent form. It was
set for midnight on the following Friday, and everyone had to be there
by 10 p.m.

Seventeen boys' parents consented, and there was another parent willing
to help with transportation. Then I notified the neighbors who lived
around Canemah cemetery, so they would know what we were doing there,
and ask for parking for three cars in front of the locked gate. Several
of the residents around Canemah called to say we could park at their
house, and so did the cemetery's caretaker. I didn't know there was a
caretaker. He wanted me to know that he would unlock the gate for us
and expressed great enthusiasm, and was glad to see that after fifteen
years someone was finally taking an interest. Some members of Sam
Barlow's family are buried there.

That Friday at 10pm all seventeen boys, an extra parent and two more
volunteers that weren't on the football team. My husband and I
explained what we were going to do as we loaded all the gear into the
van. I divided them up into groups; one for fixing broken head stones,
one for uprighting them, one for trash pick up and one for grass
maintenance. They were energetic and excited, and on the way to the
cemetery I heard about several ghost sightings and haunted
houses.

When we arrived at the cemetery, I gave them a one last going-over of
the plan, and added just a tad more excitement by offering to anyone
who'd changed their minds to say so right then, or forever hold their
peace. And, I told them, if anyone sees a ghost, call me over, because
I wanted to see one, too. Two brothers said a quick prayer for peace
and protection before we started, and it added even more excitement to
the activities ahead.

We noticed several of the residents watching us through their living
room windows as we opened the gates, and we all entered hallowed
ground. Each group went right to work; my husband mixed the cement and
helped with fixing the broken stones, and the other parent took the
come-along to upright the overturned ones, while I headed the
graffiti/trash and yard maintenance groups. But, midnight approached,
one of the boys called out the time for all to hear, and that's when
the real activity began.

Those boys had me running all over, and each time the ghost had
disappeared before I could get there. They started seeing 'the King',
all of them. They called him the King because he was as tall as a tree
~ the King of apparitions. As one described him to me, another boy
would report having seen the same apparition, only in a different
place. They saw girls in pioneer-looking dresses watching them, Indian
Chiefs in full dress, and Civil War fighters in uniform. One soldier
was mischievous enough to hold the trash bag for one boy, scaring the
daylights out of him when he realized who was helping him. They
screamed and hollered and were having a great time scaring themselves
silly.

I never did see the King, or any of the many other ghosts they
described. The work went well, though I had a hard time convincing the
boys to help me replace the heavy planks that were askew beside the
graves that had been robbed. They thought it looked as if someone had
escaped from it after being buried alive. The work was finished before
I'd had time to notice how late it had gotten.

Upon returning to my house at about 2am, I went straight to the kitchen
to start baking the Tombstone brand pizza's I'd bought for the
occasion, while the boys flopped in the living room. they'd all worked
very hard, and I thought they'd sleep hard that night. But no; it was
too much excitement and there were too many ghost stories not yet told.
They ate fifteen pizza-pies and drank six cases of soda, and never did
go to sleep that night, and most of them had practice the next
day.

In the days following, I chose the next cemetery and sent out flyers,
slating it for the next Friday that wasn't a game night. In return, I
was then inundated with phone calls; turn-out, it seemed, would not be
a problem. But, now I had to get other parents to help me transport all
these anxious kids. It all seemed good, but I wondered; was it just
fun, or did they get the point of all of this?

One Saturday in a store parking lot, I stopped to talk to the boy who'd
been arrested for tagging. While we talked he spotted a kid he knew,
spray-painting on the side of the store and he called him by name. The
painter hurriedly kept to his tagger-style of artwork, and didn't pay
attention to the boy walking up to him. By the time I'd gotten there,
he was telling the young vandal how much work it is to clean up
graffiti, and he asked why didn't he have any respect for something
that wasn't his? He told the boy if he wanted to be in a gang, join
ours instead.

At least one boy had gotten the principle of the whole project. If one
boy could get it, others would too. And children are much better
teachers to other children. Small as it had been, a difference had been
made.