A Graveyard of Watermelons

Today I went for a walkabout. It’s a nice autumn day, it’s nice to get outside.

The walk just so happened to coincide with the Automattic Worldwide WP 5K, a virtual 5K for users of WordPress. It’s not really a race, and I certainly didn’t run.

So, I’ll say that my walk today was part of that, though it was closer to 7K than 5K. I went up to Dallastown (dropping off mail at the post office), then through town, over to Fruitlyn Road (stopping at a roadside fruit stand) which I took all the way over to Dallastown’s Walnut Street (stopping to explore a cemetery), and then back home. I left at 11 o’clock. I was back home at 12:45. I wasn’t in any rush.

What follows is a selection of photos I took along Fruitlyn Road.

Farm country. Cows are never far away.

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In summer, this was a verdant corn field.

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As was this.

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Here, we have a graveyard of shattered watermelons.

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The direction from whence I came.

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Apple trees.

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I thought this might have been an apiary, but it’s actually a mausoleum.

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It turns out there’s a cemetery there.

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It was an interesting cemetery. It appears to be new, like within the last fifteen years new. All of the markers are metallic and flush with the ground, probably to make mowing easier. I noticed that many of the markers have birth dates but not death dates. I also noticed that the names in this cemetery were quite different than the names in the cemeteries in Yoe and Dallastown.

And then there’s this curious structure.

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Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

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Ionic columns. A sundial in the center. It seemed, as I approached, quite… pagan.

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There was a patriotic temple of sorts further in. I did not explore that. Perhaps another time.

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Back on Fruitlyn Road.

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And, that was that!

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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