{"id":35062,"date":"2026-01-08T20:36:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T01:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=35062"},"modified":"2026-01-08T20:36:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T01:36:53","slug":"meeting-deer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=35062","title":{"rendered":"Meeting Deer"},"content":{"rendered":"

At some point, I was going to visit the cemeteries in Baltimore and tell my mom’s family that she had died<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, if the afterlife is a thing you believe in, there was really no need to do so; depending on what kind of afterlife one believes in, one could argue that her family would already know. If an afterlife is not<\/i> a thing, then I wasn’t doing anything, because what’s in the cemetery isn’t aware of me or anything at all.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, I felt it was something to do, if only for my own piece of mind. I feel a sense of responsibility to people I have never met and who died long before I was born.<\/p>\n

I wrote two months ago that I went looking for a 19th-century Episcopal priest, Dr. Julius Grammer<\/a>. I found that, standing next to my great-great-grandmother’s grave, I could make out clearly where he and his family are buried, though seeing his grave would be impossible.<\/p>\n

\"Loudon<\/p>\n

The Fowler grave, a capped obelisk circled toward the left, is the key. Grammer’s grave would be behind that, up some stairs cut into the hillside. The mausoleum I circled is the same mausoleum I walked past two months ago; if I’d turned to my left, I’d have seen Dr. Grammer’s site.<\/p>\n

Also up there is the grave of Bill Gardner<\/a> (no relation), who played for the Baltimore Orioles in 1887. His father, Augustus, is buried on Whatcoat hill, near my great-great-grandmother.<\/p>\n

\"MARC<\/p>\n

A MARC train went by. I always wave at the trains as they pass.<\/p>\n

There was deer poop all over the place. Of course there was, because there were deer!<\/p>\n

\"Deer<\/p>\n

A rangale of deer were minding their own business in the cemetery, and then this idiot tourist wandered right into the middle of them. The deer were spooked, I was spooked, and we stared at each other for a few minutes. They moved to get a better (suspicious) look at me. I moved to get better photos.<\/p>\n

One of the deer had an impressive white tail.<\/p>\n

Eventually, they tired of me, and I wanted to get back to my car.<\/p>\n

Maybe we parted friends when they ran off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At some point, I was going to visit the cemeteries in Baltimore and tell my mom’s family that she had died. Now, if the afterlife is a thing you believe in, there was really no need to do so; depending on what kind of afterlife one believes in, one could argue that her family wouldContinue reading “Meeting Deer”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[575,5383,4581],"class_list":["post-35062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-deer","tag-loudon-park-cemetery","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}