A Book Bound In Oak

Close followers of this page (there are seven of you, I am counting!) will understand, there are myriad reasons for returning to my hometown.

But, this afternoon, after a walk through our old cemetery looking at Civil War Soldier graves, I finally understood.

I love this town because inside of the cemetery, in the chapel, there is a book. It has a white oak cover, inscribed with images of acorns and oak leaves. Every year, its vellum pages are etched with the names of the veterans who fell that year. In calligraphy.

That book sits on a special stand, inscribed with the same leaves and acorns as the book's cover.

This afternoon, my childhood mailman's cousin turned each page, slowly. We were looking for the names of a lady's brothers, who fell in the great war. On every page, one of the three of us knew the family who lost someone.

Finally, we found the page, where the lady's brothers were buried. She will be buried on the same hill.

I love this town.

I love it because it is the place where the Cuyahoga makes its steepest bend.

I love it because we have a special oak bound book, in Oakwood Cemetery, where we list the names of the Saints who from their labors rest.

Erected by the Ladies Cemetery Association, 1890

I know, just north of us, on Route 8, there is a town with a fey historic district, where the people put on airs.  It is lovely place. But I bet they don't have an oak bound book like we do here. Money can buy you a vulgar house in an insipid subdivision, but it cannot buy you a book. Bound in oak. Where each year, we inscribe patriot names.

The lady and I poured over every page. Newberries and Sills. Mothersbaughs, Plums, and Wetmores. Once she found the page where her brothers were listed, and the hill where she, too, will be buried, she was at peace.

Me, too. Bury me at Oakwood Cemetery.

Put up a sandstone monument. Let it fade into nothingness with the centuries.

This place. This town. These trees. This river.

I love Goose Egg Island. Which, technically, I should not be speaking of. It is off limits. Federally protected. But put me in a canoe and I will find my way there.

The place where the river bends.

It is every town, yet singular. America's weirdest, and best, hometown.