Dry Goods

It’s been twenty years or more since we visited our old stomping ground in Northern Virginia. Carla and I first lived in Reston, then Ashburn, then Lovettsville, moving farther West as the D.C. suburbs grew outward like an ever expanding circle of crabgrass.

While we were there, we drove over to Frederick, Md. to visit the Haller family graves in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. Over 200 Haller ancestors are planted there. Carla and I inherited plots too, morbid dirt vultures waiting for us to join in with the rest of the family, going back more than five generations. We’ve since decided to take a pass on all of it, voting in favor of cremation with instructions to Ruth and Hannah to merge our ashes, along with any dogs we leave behind, into colorful urns to sit on their respective mantles. I want to come out of my bottle in spirit whenever the seafood looks yummy or the party is getting to the point where neighbors just may have to call the police. That's my favorite time to be there.

None of that has anything to do with this picture though. I took this with a cheap camera while we were driving around Frederick. I noticed the fading advertising on the side of this barn. It boasts of my Grandfather Haller’s dry goods store. Painted in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s, I could just make out: “Haller Dry Goods…Suits, Coats, Corsets”

I never met the man. He made his run from 1860 to 1940, his dry goods store being a staple of the community back in his day.

Now this photograph is fading too, just like that old barn. Soon, it may not even exist anymore. This old photo, the only copy I have, will be gone soon enough, just like all those ancestors whose lives and stories are buried forever.

I’m glad that Carla and I will have more lively digs in each of the girls’ houses. I don’t want to miss out on anything.

When I've asked the girls how they feel about that plan, they both wrinkle their noses like they are smelling poop. Maybe it's too morbid. One or both may dump our ashes down the porcelain god and flush us away to the same place the rest of the clan wound up anyway.

Footnote: Carla objects to some parts of this plan. Assuming I go first, I expect that she, along with whatever dogs we have right then, will be cremated at the same time I am, even if they aren't quite ready to go. I've told her that those furnaces are so hot that it will only sting for a few minutes, but for some reason, she balking. Now my head is spinning with real questions about what "loyalty" we've really had between us all along.