A funeral on East Lancaster
My grandmother's twin sister died earlier this summer. Most of her offspring were spread on opposite ends of the country, so to make a long story short, the memorial service/burial (she was cremated) took place last weekend. The funeral was in Rose Hill Cemetery, on East Lancaster, on the east side of Fort Worth.
For those of you insufficiently immersed in trivia, this is Lee Harvey Oswald's burial place. I recalled this obscure fact when I heard where my aunt was to be buried.
The group I rode over with elected to skip everything but the graveside service. As we were filing to our cars, I ran into one of my cousins, who was the sole representative of the Houston branch of the family tree. He said, "I got here early and found Oswald's grave. You can find instructions on the Internet." Which is good, since the employees at Rose Hill will not, citing the family's wish for privacy, tell you where it is.
I said, "Gee, I thought about seeing if I could find it, too. Show me after the service." My sister piped in that she wanted to see it as well. I've lived in Fort Worth the majority of my life, and it's always the case that you never seem to see the local attractions unless someone from out of town wants to see them.
After the service, my sister, brother, cousin and I piled into cars and went in search of Oswald's grave. "It's near the Shannon family mausoleum," my cousin reported. We found it and pulled off the side of the winding road, near a section at the edge of the cemetery. A chain link fence separated the grounds from a street lined with cheap post-war houses.
We wandered about for a couple of minutes, searching in vain for The Grave. My cousin said, "I found it once. It was marked with a pink granite stone, set in the ground. All it said was OSWALD." We laughed self-consciously at ourselves for this act of slightly morbid curiosity.
"Y'all looking for Oswald?" came a woman's voice from across the street. We looked and saw a middle-aged woman in a tank top, sitting on her porch drinking beer from a longneck.
"Yeah, how did you know?" said one of our party.
Ignoring the obvious answer, our new-found guide said, "You in the plaid shirt, go back about ten feet. You'll be right on top of him."
We did and there it was, the final resting place of Lee Harvey Oswald: the most reviled man in America, at least when I was growing up.
To his right side was another marker, almost as plain, that said simply NICK BEEF. "Who the hell is Nick Beef?" we all wondered aloud. None of us knew, but the line, "Where's the Beef?" spontaneously occurred to all of us.
And so, our curiosity abated, we filed slowly back to our vehicles and returned to the business of life, an odd little coda on the day's events.
As a post-script, I finally Googled old Nick this morning. Though it has the ring of Urban Legend about it, the conventional Internet Wisdom (subject to the usual caveats) is that plot of Mr. Beef is empty, purchased by a comedian.
For those of you insufficiently immersed in trivia, this is Lee Harvey Oswald's burial place. I recalled this obscure fact when I heard where my aunt was to be buried.
The group I rode over with elected to skip everything but the graveside service. As we were filing to our cars, I ran into one of my cousins, who was the sole representative of the Houston branch of the family tree. He said, "I got here early and found Oswald's grave. You can find instructions on the Internet." Which is good, since the employees at Rose Hill will not, citing the family's wish for privacy, tell you where it is.
I said, "Gee, I thought about seeing if I could find it, too. Show me after the service." My sister piped in that she wanted to see it as well. I've lived in Fort Worth the majority of my life, and it's always the case that you never seem to see the local attractions unless someone from out of town wants to see them.
After the service, my sister, brother, cousin and I piled into cars and went in search of Oswald's grave. "It's near the Shannon family mausoleum," my cousin reported. We found it and pulled off the side of the winding road, near a section at the edge of the cemetery. A chain link fence separated the grounds from a street lined with cheap post-war houses.
We wandered about for a couple of minutes, searching in vain for The Grave. My cousin said, "I found it once. It was marked with a pink granite stone, set in the ground. All it said was OSWALD." We laughed self-consciously at ourselves for this act of slightly morbid curiosity.
"Y'all looking for Oswald?" came a woman's voice from across the street. We looked and saw a middle-aged woman in a tank top, sitting on her porch drinking beer from a longneck.
"Yeah, how did you know?" said one of our party.
Ignoring the obvious answer, our new-found guide said, "You in the plaid shirt, go back about ten feet. You'll be right on top of him."
We did and there it was, the final resting place of Lee Harvey Oswald: the most reviled man in America, at least when I was growing up.
To his right side was another marker, almost as plain, that said simply NICK BEEF. "Who the hell is Nick Beef?" we all wondered aloud. None of us knew, but the line, "Where's the Beef?" spontaneously occurred to all of us.
And so, our curiosity abated, we filed slowly back to our vehicles and returned to the business of life, an odd little coda on the day's events.
As a post-script, I finally Googled old Nick this morning. Though it has the ring of Urban Legend about it, the conventional Internet Wisdom (subject to the usual caveats) is that plot of Mr. Beef is empty, purchased by a comedian.
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