A cemetery isn’t a public park and, when people arrive to visit their loved one’s grave or inter a loved one, they don’t expect to find that kind of environment. They don’t expect to find people sitting on blankets drinking beer and garbage on the ground. Keep in mind that, in most cases, cemeteries are privately owned businesses and not publicly owned or supported by tax money.
On the other hand, there are people who like to visit cemeteries and take walks in cemeteries. I certainly think that should be allowed. When I was 8, I remember my brother taking me night crawling with him in a cemetery. The grass was pristine and immaculately kept and, in an hour or two, he’d harvest 20 or 30 night crawlers for fishing bait.
This thread brought to mind something that happened when I was maybe 6 years old - it’s the first time I remember being in a cemetery. It was either Easter or Christmas because that seemed to be the only non-funeral time we went. We were at the grave of my dad’s uncle, and I remember Dad telling me “Don’t walk on Uncle George!” It stuck in my little brain that you should never walk over the grave itself - just beside/between the plots.
With that in mind, the notion of playing in a cemetery is just wrong. I don’t want a bunch of kids playing tag and running over Uncle George… yeah, I know, it’s silly. But some things are deeply ingrained. But were I to decide to visit my dad’s grave, or those of my grandparents, it would feel intrusive if someone was jogging thru there with a dog.
Oddly enough, when I was in Paris, I had no problem wandering around Père Lachaise, playing the tourist. But I was walking, quietly, alone. But I still felt as if I shouldn’t be there just out of curiosity.
I was brought up in a very strict Presbyterian family - if we went to a cemetery, you had to be dressed in a suit like you’d wear to church and you had to walk between the graves. No fun allowed. My parents would have been horrified at the idea of a dog, even on a leash.
I think that attitude towards death and cemeteries is ridiculous and outdated, but I acknowledge that it still exists for some people.
I have a single coming out sometime in 2023 on this very subject - the opening lines are -
“Bury me by some big tree that everyone can see
Where the kids play in the branches and the dogs all come to pee
Where people make out after picnics, spilling tea and wine and Brie
I pray the powers that be might let me see life’s great pageantry.”
Here’s an interesting article. There’s a historical cemetery in DC that actually offers cemetery programming, activities that take place in the cemetery. Dogs are welcome but you have to join the K9 corps first and there’s a waiting list.
Never said there was–for humans. Children running around playing (without screeching and making really high decibel noise) is fine, but dogs playing is not. A respectful quiet picnic or stroll, great, but take the rager with the kegstands and loud music elsewhere. A cemetery is literally a place of rest, of contemplation, of communing with ancestors and loved ones gone before–respect that even if you don’t share the sentiment yourself because many others do. And if it’s an active graveyard you should steer well clear of any ceremonies taking place while you’re there. YOU might be fine with your kids chasing around but someone burying their wife might not have the same view as you do and they’re the ones paying through the nose to be there.
Agreed. In my small town (20k population), there are three major cemeteries, two in town and one a couple of miles outside the city limits. One of the in-town graveyards is Catholic, but the other in-town is city-owned and the country cemetery is owned by the county.
When I was a little kid, my family visited Forest Lawn (I don’t remember which particular one…I think the original one), and we bored kids placed base tag using the bronze plaques (used instead of headstones) as the bases.
Buddy Holly is buried in the city cemetary in Lubbock. In the 70s it was on the predominately Black side of town. I heard that a city rec program for kids used the cemetary (due to lack of parks in the area, naturally). Buddy served as third base. I think he’d be proud.
Yes, I agree that how we are introduced to death/cemeteries has much to do with how we feel about them. I was raised Catholic and both the Irish and Slovenian communities I come from were possibly more accepting of death as a normal part of life than my Lutheran and Baptist neighbors. So, I grew up playing in the graveyard. My parents grew up with the dead being “waked” in their front rooms instead of a funeral home and the wakes being a celebration of life, as well as rosaries being said. Reading this, I think I am lucky to have had the childhood I did.
In the bicycle touring world, there are occasions where someone may roll into a small town with no where to pitch a tent. The logical places, like parks and schoolyards, are typically patrolled and one may be asked to leave in the middle of the night - not a great situation. However, cemeteries can be a good option if one is discreet (set-up after dark in a hidden area, no stove or fires, not interfering with any graves, pack-up and leave before the sun rises, etc.), and these places are likely to be deserted and unattended all night. I have never done it, but I hear others have, in a pinch.
I would think, unless specifically prohibited, playing with a dog in a cemetery would be OK.
I once went to a moving play in a cemetery. It was sponsored by a group that supported volunteers helping out with maintaining and chronicling the cemetery’s history.
I was never disrespectful, but I always thought of the cemetery as a sculpture garden, rather than a sacred place. Plenty of people exercised their dogs there. As long as the dog owners stop their dogs from urinating on grave headstones, I don’t have a problem with them letting their dogs run around.
Cemeteries used to be places to take the family for a picnic; green grass to escape the city.
Laurel Hill is on the National Register of Historic Places, an arboretum, & does all sorts of programming there. Yes, I’ve runraced there…w/o a costume for me, The costume contest winner went for it in a BIG way - he shaved a jack-o-lantern into his chest hair!
As a Christian, I say do anything you want there, it’s just grass and rocks (with some overly expensive ones).
The “sacredness” of a grave is another subject where the vast gap between what Christians should believe and what they actually believe is shown. If you ask them if Grandpa’s in heaven they’ll say “Yes.” *
But then they’ll act like nope, he’s really in his old body, so we can’t “step on him”, and we have to keep the gravestone clean and plant fresh flowers and weed the plot.
It’s a pet peeve of mine, and one reason is that my mother, almost every time I take her to my dad’s grave, will say “I just feel bad that he doesn’t have a better view.”
I’ve come so close to asking her, reverently of course, “Whaddafriggidyfuk?” and repeating this rant to her. But, like with so many things, I doubt she’d she’d have a clue as to why she believes two contradictory things.
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*I’m ignoring those who’d say “He’d better not be, after all the winos he robbed and toddlers he kicked and old ladies he tripped!”
