Graves immediately adjacent to Dickinson family plot
On my usual walk through Amherst town center I was chagrined to find these two toppled gravestones that probably could cast a shadow on the Dickinson family plot if the sun were out and they were still standing.
So I stopped at Town Hall on the way home to show the damage to local historian & Senior Town Planner Jonathan Tucker, and he confirmed this was recent damage.
Which of course reminded me of my Facebook photo quick update a couple days ago of the perimeter fence at the Emily Dickinson Homestead that was also most recently pushed over in the same manner.
Damage occurred sometime late Tuesday into Wednesday early morning
Amherst police responded to West Cemetery last weekend for reports of homeless folks using it as their personal playground/bar and leaving behind a major mess that had to be cleaned up by the DPW.
This is getting out of hand.
UPDATE (Sunday afternoon):
AFD & APD on scene West Cemetery after reports of "2 homeless men sleeping on Emily Dickinson's grave." One transported to CDH the other moved along
Disgusting!
ReplyDeleteLarry, the fence has "drunk (or stoned) driver" written all over it. The picket pulled the other way on the left makes me think this too. Not that it justifies it, mind you, but...
ReplyDeleteAs to the headstones, why only these two and why in the same direction? Yes, they likely "wiggled" as the steel rods appear to have rusted away, but when it is vandalism, you will usually find a lot more stones tipped, and tipped in a quite haphazard manner. This is too "neat."
Again, not to justify this, I'm just wondering why the perp(s) didn't go for the far more visible (and considerably lighter) slate headstones, including the adjacent Dickinson ones. Those Granite headstones are HEAVY (I've helped set them) and while it would be less work to topple it than to set it onto it's base, we're probably talking a couple hundred pounds here.
We're talking someone my size, or several persons working together -- either way, the ability to do an awful lot more damage than this. It's like Ferguson, if the cop was willing to murder an innocent Black man in cold blood, he'd have killed the other one too, not left him as a witness.
Now was it toppled by the "homeless" to use as a table and/or seat? I'd start there, I'd ask who didn't want to sit in the mud, which is what sitting on the grass is this time of year.
OR, and this is what I am hinting at Larry, who would benefit from the (quite legitimate) community outrage over something like this?
Never forget that Amherst is the town where a fight over ACTV management led to someone falsely accusing an (Iraci-born) UM professor of being a terrorist, with all hell breaking loose when the FBI checked it out.
Who benefits?
Old men with out a life-it gives them something to do.
ReplyDeleteOld men. Without a life, eh? And you define having a life as--what--? Doing what You do?
DeleteEd, you are completely crazy. And I'm impressed that even though you can't even spell Iraqi, that doesn't stop you from acting like a nutjob Sherlock Holmes.
ReplyDeleteCare to put your money where your mouth is, penis breath?
ReplyDeleteMuch like the sad affair involving Caroline Gardner, I'm suggesting that there might be a bit more here than there initially appears to be.
One other thing, penis breath -- how many cemeteries have you served as an unpaid sexton of? How many have you helped restore and/or responded to vandalism inside of? Unlike in Amherst, there are still places where you do it yourself or it ain't gonna get done. Places where you purchase & install your own headstone, your name & DOB already on it, and you hope that someone will later add the date of your death.
I've seen desecrated cemeteries, this is logically inconsistent.
Make that vulgar nutjob.
ReplyDeleteIf we took a poll, Ed would definitely come in first as the internet's finest nutjob.
DeleteBravo Ed, Bravo.
Now that I can't vote for Vince due to Dog-gate...I sure do wish I could vote for ed for cemetery czar !....or pens breath commissioner. ...
ReplyDeleteThen again, Ed, would have to be a citizen of our fair town, not just an obsessed busy body.
ReplyDeleteI sure wish I knew the Dr Ed story.....
ReplyDeleteNo Justice, No Peace. Give me what I want and I'll go away.
ReplyDelete0therwise, I'll haunt "your" foul town for all of eternity....
And remember that I said that this cemetery & fence damage, no matter how reprehensible, "wasn't adding up" the way it was being presented. The same way that the Caroline Gardner matter wasn't adding up, didn't add up.
But I say again, give me what I want and I'll go away...
Genesis 19:13-25....
"Dog-gate"?!?
ReplyDeleteVote for Vince!
Well this thread is the beginning of the end of my interest in Larry's blog. It has devolved into blatant insults. Ed's prior post should have been deleted. Strike one.
ReplyDeleteBlatant insults are why we come here! Everything else is boring.
Deletethis is what happens when you open a wet shelter and invite the undesirables from the region to squat in your town: they shit all over it. LK, I want to know how often AFD and APD deal with this assholes. I got accosted by one the other day who told my wife how well he could eat her "female part". Makes me want to spend my money downtown….(sarcasm)
ReplyDeleteAnd yet there are those who want to invite refugees into the nation without vetting them. Are you saying they're all desirables?
DeleteI got accosted by one the other day who told my wife how well he could eat her "female part".
ReplyDeleteI want to know why that kind of stuff isn't criminally prosecuted -- if it's actually happening. Of course, I can think of an even better solution similar to what is recommended to women who encounter a "flasher" -- point at the exposed genitalia and start laughing hysterically.
There was an angry letter in the newspaper of some parents accusing Vince of hiding the identity of a pit bull after it bit two girls and they had to go through rabies shots. Don't know myself what exactly happemed. The parents said that Vince has no place involved with the school committee when he showed so little care for their child.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI sure wish I knew the Dr. Ed story.....
No, you don't.
Ed, anything taken from you was taken by yourself. Blame yourself.
ReplyDelete