Jill Berry Blog

living the creative life

Little Debbie

Posted on October 23, 2008 - Filed Under Uncategorized

This retreat just brought out the high schooler in me. On Sunday a group of us went rubbing around Cedarburg (wax rubbing…on signs and graves and decor), played in the leaves and made this photo. Remember this? It still strikes me as hilarious and darling to see little Debbie standing so nicely in Judy’s hand. (Read what Judy has to say on her blog. She is a heck of a blogger.)

Our group went to the cemetery and made up stories about the things we saw there, did some rubbings on some very old graves. There was a beautiful statue there that we were photographing when some legitimate mourners drove up. Discretion is the better part of valor, so we calmed it down to let them have peace. Turns out Holly and her mother were coming to see their Aunt Lily, who was buried with Uncle Marvin at the base of the lovely statue that infatuated us.

Seems that Uncle Marvin also had his head turned by this statue, long before Aunt Lily showed any signs of moving on to greener pastures, and far too long out for the likes of her family. He was taken by the fact that the angel was holding flowers, since he and Lily were florists. Marvin was convinced if he passed this one by he would never again find a floral angel, so he parked it in their living room for safekeeping and waited. Neither Lily or the rest of the family liked this one bit, but Marvin held his ground. And here she is!

Holly and her mother were visiting their old hometown from Ojai, California where they now live. Holly is a real estate agent, just down the street from where I taught in September (fate or coincidence? It is a little woo woo since Ojai is just about the same size as Cedarburg). They also told us that the the primarily German souls buried there had their gravestones facing Germany, or something else they considered sacred. At any rate, all in one direction. The non-Germans at the bottom, the interlopers, were the only stones facing the opposite way. Isn’t that funny? Cedarburg is rich in its history, full of stories and soldiers, and these little are battles still being fought there. The Obama and McCain signs marching down the streets, the Germans and the Others facing off in the cemetery, and all of them enveloped in gorgeousness.

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