The Odyssey got off to a flying
start at 9:20 this morning. We’re having
beautiful weather here in South Jersey—sunny, clear skies, apparently going to
top out at 49.° Awesome!
Before I went to see anything, I
took a picture of what I believe to be the single weirdest thing in New
Jersey—my house:
Still, I’m optimistic. I had to re-calibrate the route a bit, since
I decided to see some things in South Jersey first; Zippy the Pinhead will have
to wait. I threw everything into the car,
kissed my dad good-bye (after about 54 promises to be careful), and headed off
to Vineland, to look at a guy’s front yard with a 12-foot Statue of Liberty in
it!
The GPS was able to navigate me
right to the guy’s door. Actually, the
first thing I saw wasn’t the Statue of Liberty, it was this behemoth lion:
Seriously, look at that thing. It’s
at least nine feet tall, and probably more than 12 feet at the base. It looks like he looted a library or
something. Not only does he have it in
his front yard, it’s right in front of his entranceway, which must make it
really difficult for the mailman to navigate around it in snow.
I parked at a funeral home across
the street for a better vantage point.
After snapping the hideous lion, I looked to my left and saw what The
Guidebook refers to as “The Fountain of Youth.”
This was a little obscured by trees, but there’s some sort of
weird-looking cherubim on the top:
I drove up and down the street for
awhile—and there it was! The Statue of
Liberty! I flapped my hands in
glee. The very first stop on the Odyssey
was a success! It’s a little obscured by
trees, but it’s still very obvious what it is:
The statue, along with the rest of
the crap in the yard, was built in 1920 or thereabouts by a plumber who had “a
passion for concrete and yard art.” Why
a person would have this amount of enthusiasm for concrete work and choose to
go into plumbing instead of laying sidewalk or building roads or something else
hands-on with concrete isn’t clear, but considering the…um…enthusiasm he very
clearly had for his work, perhaps it’s for the best.
So encouraged by my patriotic
triumph, I plotted a course for the Clara-Glenn Pet Cemetery in Linwood. I had to do some doubling back, but it turned
out to be worth it because I passed this.
I was thrilled—an unscheduled stop
on the Odyssey! Not that there’s
anything really “weird” about Amish furniture, it’s just that I can’t imagine
that there’s that big a market for it in South Jersey. We don’t have a very large Amish population,
and I’ve never even seen a place where they could worship. The store was closed, unfortunately, but they
did have over a dozen somewhat garishly painted chairs at the curbside:
I think it says something nice
about the Amish that they’re so trusting they would just leave a good hunk of
their inventory outside on the road while the store was closed. Not that I could have waltzed off with any of
the chairs anyway.
I got Mission Control (Ed) on the
phone and told him of my progress so far.
This proved to be a wise move, because the pet cemetery turned out to be
very difficult to get to—cemeteries don’t have actual addresses, so I was only
able to put the block into the GPS, and of course they couldn’t be helpful and
have it right there on the main drag. Ed
looked at some satellite maps and proceeded to wave me in after a minimum of
fuss.
The cemetery turned out to be
located more or less in someone’s back yard, so technically I had to trespass
to get there. But, wow, was it worth
it. Look at this beautiful panoramic
shot:
I stayed on the phone with Ed the
entire time, and he read some facts off the internet while I schlepped around
taking pictures. Apparently, there were
burials as late as 1990, and the oldest grave I could find was for a dog named
Duke:
1918, for crying out loud. World War I.
Both my grandfathers fought in that war, and I’m sure they were all
broken up to hear that Duke didn't make it.
I was also somewhat amused at the
somewhat sad things people named their pats, dooming them to go through
eternity with names like “Bon-Bon” and “Suzie-Bum” and “Mr. Wiggleworm,” not to
mention these names:
There was also what appeared to be
a family pot with three gravestones bearing the names “Teddy,” “Teddy Jr.,” and
“Teddy III.” Clearly, these people
should have stopped naming their dogs Teddy.
Scamp was apparently so well-loved
he got his picture engraved on his headstone:
However, Sparky’s owners laid out
even more money for a concrete likeness (unless it was just a generic dog. Who would know after all these years?):
However, by far the best was the
grave of Lucky, someone’s beloved sheep:
“He certainly didn’t turn out very
lucky,” I said to Ed while focusing the camera.
“Well, at least they didn’t serve
him,” he reasoned.
If you want to read more about the cemetery (and see pictures of gravestones that are now evidently gone), here is their official site.
I’m now headed to Salem County,
where I’m scheduled to see some mysterious lights and hear some mysterious
footsteps on a bridge. I’m not sure how
effective this is going to be during the day, so I might just press on to
Camden County instead. Stay tuned!
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