Stone Cold Minky
A proud member of The Association of Graveyard Rabbits; Recording the beauty of the SoCal Cemetery
Monday, November 1, 2010
And we're back!
Sorry for the looonnggg delay between posts. Lots going on in the real world.
Anyhow...we are now in NOVEMBER which, in the Catholic Church is the time for souls.
Whose souls? ALL SOULS.
There was a time, (notice how I keep saying how there USED to be a time whenever I speak about the church militant? Sad. Very.), when one could expect to encounter any number of people strolling about the cemetery, rosary beads in hand praying prayers for the dead, especially in the first 8 days of November.
Whether you believe this or not, our prayers do help the departed. So take some time in the next 8 days. Find a cemetery and say a little prayer for the souls of those who have left their marble/granite/bronze calling cards in the place.
All you lose is maybe a few minutes. Someone else may gain peace for all eternity.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Stacked one on top the other...
Not even in death can one escape thier fellow Los Angelean. They stack 'em up high like cordwood out here.
In both life and death, we are all just too close for comfort in LA. The thought for this post came to me as I watched our more or less all the time tispy neighbor park her car OVER the line of some one's driveway, thus blocking most of it.
The owners of said driveway came home, had an awful time getting in their drive. Within minutes, the more or less nasty guy who lives there came out and placed what I guess is a more or less nasty note on the more or less tispy person's car.
Now, I could have told the tispy person to come move her car, could have told the nasty guy who had blocked them in....but as the nasty people have the highly excitable and audible dogs that bark all day long while their people are away...I decided, "screw it!", let 'em stew!
I know. Not nice of me. Not at all.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Oh, and by the way...
Please join me in praying to end abortion. Not only does it still the beating heart of the baby, it also breaks the heart of the Mother who opted for what she was told was the "right choice".
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Feast of the Guardian Angels
This coming Saturday, October 2nd, marks the Feast of the Guardian Angels in the Catholic Church.
Surely, you cradle RC's can remember;
Angel of God, My Guardian Dear
to whom God's love commits me here.
Ever this day be at my side
to light and guard and rule and guide.
Amen.
Grave yard Rabbits especially need a good Guardian Angel at their side, particuarly when investigating places like say...Inglewood. Or Angelus-Rosedale.
When I first blew into town, I thought NOTHING of just chugging into wilds of West Adams/Crenshaw district to go and photograph Angelus-Rosedale. Oh, yeah, leave the purse in the car, the whole bit as I meandered about, camera in hand.
So without further ado, lets's explore some of the angels of LA's grave yards.
This trio of winged love all hail from Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Whittier over near the LA Morgue. Within the gates, all is well. Outside is a different issue. Never the less, the visual treats that await within Calvary are almost worth the threat of a stray bullet crashing through the windshield.
Being a Catholic burying ground, angels abound.
I've often thought that this image would make a great Christmas card for an out of state relative and it would read:
"Merry Christmas! Please don't die next year!
I can't afford the airfare if you do."
More winsome winged wonders from Whittier.
One of my personel favorites!
Angels, angels everywhere!!
So give a shout-out of thanks to your Guardian Angel on Saturday!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saint Michael the Archangel...
Friday, September 24, 2010
Four more ties bind us to heaven...
Monday, September 20, 2010
Wonderful things!
Often, one will need cemetery property to go with that marker. Yeah, we do that too and it just so happens that one of the properties we currently have for sale is located in Glendale...in Forest Lawn...in a place called Holly Terrace.
Until last year, Holly Terrace was a sleepy mausoleum that was home to numerous stained glass windows and a couple of Hollywood stars; WC Fields and "Good Time" Wally Reid. And then a certain young man moved in and suddenly the place was hot property in more ways than one.
Security had always been tight but now it was racked up to the levels of Fort Knox. Getting an audience with his Holiness the Pope was easier than obtaining entry into Holly Terrace even for property owners.
Which was fine by me because up to last Saturday, so far as I was knew, Holly Terrace was likely just another Forest Lawn "Disney" production of look-a-like crypts and regulation plaques.
I also envisioned little animated cherub figures dancing and chirping "It's a Small World!" over and over.
Thanks, but I'll pass.
And then last Saturday, I finally got to go inside.
There is a story of the person who first spied the contents of King Tut's tomb. He was leaning in thru a hole, light held high. The people behind him called out,
"What do you see??"
and he replied with wide eyed amazement,
"Wonderful things!"
The minute the potential buyer and the seller where settled in front of the property, I took off like a shot, keenly aware that this may be my one and only chance to check out the premises if only in five minutes.
Pausing in the main hall, I said a "Hail Mary" for the young man entombed beneath the windows of Christ's return to heaven and then skedaddled my way towards pools of light.
I wish that my eyes were a camera and that I could blink and copy here all that I saw.
A huge window of a boy and his dog entitled "Faith". A woman in an Edwardian high collar looking up from her book informed me that she depicted "Wisdom".
Marble statues abounded. Not a weeping angel in the lot but rather graceful young women dancing and chubby babies gurgling. Here was life, here was joy...
Rays of pure sunlight streamed through a Tudor style window and played on the marble floor below. In that one moment I could have been in a medieval castle or a monastery. Or perhaps the foyer of an east coast ivy league school. I could have been one of a hundred different places.
And then I found it; what is possibly the most unusual window I have ever seen in such a setting as this; the Christmas window.
Because the image is copyrighted, I cannot reproduce it here. I can however put up the link:
http://huberteaton.com/html/_christmas_window_.html
Who would have thought to have placed such a scene of joy and life within the halls of the silent?
"We like it" whispered the residents, "We like to remember that we lived, we loved and we rejoiced. And now we are all together once more and that is all that matters..."
From a distance, I could hear the five minute warning of the door guard, urging our party to depart. Not wishing to meet with the a squad of Forest Lawn's own boys in blue, I made haste back to the door but not before I noticed a plaque at eye level.
"Dear God," it read,
"Thanks for everything!"
Couldn't have said it better myself!