Cemetery, old and beautiful...in daylight..... Nancy Hopkins

During a trip home on the weekend of October 13, 2000, I returned to the scariest place in my hometown, especially on the scariest night of the year, Halloween. The cemetery has stood since at least 1775, the oldest tombstone I found.

It was an incredibly beautiful Fall day. My brother-in-law and my nephews joined Rudy the dog in enjoying the warm, Indian Summer day. The leaves were falling and soon would all be dead, just in time for Halloween.

Rudy cannot possibly understand that the stone markers have laid where they were placed for as much as 225 years. People buried who have long been forgotten by even their closest family members.

Rudy would not understand how this tranquil place could instill such fright on the one night of the year when the children remember the cemetery and test their Halloween nerves by walking through the tombstones...with the spirits who walk on Halloween.

According to legend, the veil between living and dead is very thin at the end of October when the Harvest Moon has passed and the bounty of summer has been collected and stored for the Winter to come. This was the fading Full Moon, called the Harvest Moon, that rose as we drove home.

I am very glad to have returned in daylight to the cemetery. The Halloween remembrances of fright and egg fights have been replaced by tranquil images of children and a dog in the October sun, playing in a cemetery. I think those who's headstones still rest there would approve.

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