Several weeks ago I left the house early, planning to go down to Evergreen and map the area behind the mausoleum, breaking it into bite-sized sections that my son and I could work independently as our free time allowed.
Once I parked, hauled my kit out of the car and walked around to the worst bit of the place, I was surprised to see that I was not alone. An older gentleman was walking the rows (or what passes for rows, down at Evergreen) and I realized that I might have blocked him in, so I approached him and asked if I should move my car. I said that I would probably be a good while, and he said, well, he couldn’t find his people anyway.
:( :(
So, natch, I offered to help and got my gloves and little broom and YES THANK GOD one of his stones was not completely buried. From that one, he was able to tell me where the other five should be. He wasn’t a young man, and I surely didn’t mind unearthing the stones and cleaning them up while he told me about the lives they marked, how his family came to California and what they did once they arrived. It was a very pleasant interlude, while I worked. He talked about his people and asked about mine. He asked “what got you into this, anyway?” so I told him how my Dad always took us to old cemeteries when I was a kid, and how my fall essays were always “What I Did For My Summer Vacation – I cleaned up gravesites in the middle of nowhere.” 
He thought that was funny as hell
I had planned, of course, to be very methodical about my documentation and his family plot was right in the middle, not where I’d intended to start – but of course I took photos and GPS co-ordinates and offered to send him copies.
So he gave me his address and I sent him prints the next day, with a letter explaining what GPS co-ordinates are 
I’d really forgotten all about it, until this afternoon when I was sorting through the mail looking for a bill I’d forgotten to pay, and right there in the middle of my property taxes, my DMV notices, my utility bills and the usual 30-40 offers to re-fi my mortgage, there was a small envelope I’d missed, hand addressed to me.
It was a lovely thank-you note. I quote:
“Years ago, we all depended on our neighbors, family and friends. Now almost everyone is a stranger and so we pray God bless the honest ones that don’t cheat us or rob us or sell us things that we don’t need. There are so few acts of complete kindness anymore that we almost forgot how to ask blessings for a friendly and generous stranger. But we remembered. God Bless You and God Bless Your Father and Your Mother and Your Children Always.”
What property taxes?
