All I really want is a ground penetrating radar machine.
I love pioneer cemeteries. Is that weird? I love them because they are a wealth of stories, history, and the people buried there represented a resilience that we don't see as often anymore. These people created homesteads, raised crops, started businesses, and began towns where there was often nothing more than forests and wild things. That took a measure of resilience that a lot of people are lacking today. There is a lesson for us there.
I would love to own a pioneer cemetery. I ask my husband every year on my birthday to buy me one. I would restore it. Study it. Catalog it. I would figure out who each person is, what they contributed, and write the stories down so they are not forgotten. Then I would have cemetery tours or cemetery walks at certain times of the year. I would dress in clothes that looked old and pass out pamphlets full of information. I would lead a group through the cemetery, and tell people to stay in line. (I could do that because it would be mine.) I would make grand gestures at this stone or that, wait for everyone to stop talking excitedly about how great it is to learn about a pioneer cemetery, and fill everyone with the knowledge of people that had come before. It would be a hit!
But, since I don't own a pioneer cemetery...YET. All I really want for now is a ground penetrating radar machine. I saw this somewhere online. It is a thing. You can drive them over the ground where old graves are, and you can locate the ones that have been covered over by time. If I had a ground penetrating radar machine, I would start using it on a cemetery near where I live, that is lost. No one knows where it really is anymore. It was THAT old and it has been lost and forgotten. I would drive my ground penetrating radar machine all over the "supposed" area and find the location. I would map all the graves and apply for a historical marker to commemorate the spot. When the media finds out, I would ask that the headline in the news reads, "WOMAN WHO WAITED FOREVER FOR GROUND PENETRATING RADAR MACHINE, FINALLY HITS PAY DIRT." (I have that catchy title already figured out.) The second title would say, "HER NEXT GOAL IS TO OWN A CEMETERY IF HER HUSBAND WILL BUY ONE." Then I will give an interview about the trials of finding a lost cemetery: receiving permission from the property owners, hauling the equipment, how to stop your sons from playing with the ground penetrating radar equipment because IT IS NOT A TOY, and what to do when your husband laughs at you for wanting ground penetrating radar equipment AND a cemetery for your birthday,
Pioneer cemeteries are important, and I have waited a long time. But I can keep waiting. I am resilient.
