Writing Assignment #8

Writing Assignment – Day 8  - June 11

Go to a public location and make a detailed report of what you see.  (The twist ……… write the post without adverbs.)

 

The graveyard lay one mile west of the town; on the north side of the old highway number five. More than three hundred gravestones, the oldest dating back to the early twentieth century, marked the plots of those community members that had at one time or another called this community “home”. There was an orderly manner in which the plots were arranged, with the oldest located at the very southwest corner of the first row of graves. Over the years the number of rows had worked its way to the east so that by 1983 the newest grave dug lay approximately in the center of the graveyard one third of the way up.

Many years prior to 1983, the town had planted spruce seedlings around the whole perimeter of the graveyard as well as surrounding the site with a five foot high page wire fence. The seedlings had thrived, so that by 1983 they provided shelter from the fierce northwest winds, as well as providing a comforting backdrop for the graves. Even with the protection of the spruces, the winds that blew, the rains that fell, the hail that hammered, the ice that cracked, the frost that heaved the earth and the lichens that grew on the stones, had worn down the inscriptions chiseled and cut into the tombstones of those who came before.