Posted on 09/27/2010 9:50:57 AM PDT by PA BOOKEND
Is anyone else tired of all the elaborate roadside memorials? I believe the whole thing has gotten completely out of hand. Years ago I said we would soon being seeing regulation tombstones in place of homemade crosses, etc. Well, last week it happened. I didn't stop to see if it was engraved (or whatever the process of writing on a tombstone is called), but I'll bet it was. Enough, already. That's what cemetaries are for! Obviously, it has nothing to do with the deceased; it's all about the survivors. I guess the problem with confining such remembrances to a cemetary is that one loses the "see me, notice me, look at me" - the exhibitionism that has infested our culture. I say, 30 days of mementos and that's it. That's what I say.
The country is going to hell and this it what bothers you ?
I drive the entire length of I-575 every day to work. It has a bunch of roadside markers. It is curious that a lot of them are on the very straight parts. In addition, you’d be surprised at the number of women in SUVs that get killed running off it. Then again, maybe not. Most of the ones I see have a damned cell phone planted in their ear for the entire trip.
Had a horrific accident around the corner from my house on the main drag a few years back. It’s a three lane parkway that splits into East and West at the point of impact. Relatives were holding “services”, out in the street every weekend!
When did people stop mourning in private? Why advertise your grief to the world? I just don’t get it.
They are good reminders to drive safe but I agree they are a tad over the top sometimes.
The sticker memorials on car windows crack me up.
“In memory of John 1960 - 2010” or something like that.
Is your car in memory of John? The window? Your driving? The bird poop on the window?
I imagine if it wasn’t about the survivors, and just about the deceased, we wouldn’t have funerals or cemetaries at all!!
“see me, notice me, look at me”
Sorta like vanity posts
Those shrines sure got my attention as a teenage driver.
I’m tired of complaint vanities. Wahhhhh.
Descansos have been around in New Mexico for centuries.
They take up space and are a distraction to drivers!
The worst thing (IMO) is the “RIP” notice decals that people are putting on their cars and trucks. Just seems bizarre. Everyone has had someone in their family or friends who’s passed away. Why “advertise” it?
I saw one of these the other day in Orlando. Two feet from a 4 lane highway at the foot of a small traffic sign there was a cross, some flowers and various stuffed animals. There was also a woman weeping and having a cig and a beer as she talked to the makeshift shrine. Yeah, that’ll help.
Some cultures [in this case, Celtic] believe your soul “remains” at the place you actually died.
For 13 years, I maintained a small wooden Celtic cross where a good friends was run down by a cager.
Every year on the anniversary, we visited, “spilled beer” [his favorite brand] on the spot and said a prayer for his soul.
Every Hallowe’en night, [when the Celts believe the “veil between the worlds” is at its thinnest, I would light a 24 hour votive candle and just sit for a while.
Both he and I are/were Christians but we honored our Celtic roots, as well.
The “memorial” itself was small, not visually distracting and I doubt that most drivers even knew it was there.
But I did.
I’ve never seen any locally that went beyond a simple, small cross and perhaps some flowers placed for holidays, now and again.
They don’t bother me.
In fact, I pay token memory the stranger who died there and wish their family and loved ones peace.
YMMV.
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