[LEMONS] 1.29.2006
I don't see dead people
Colma is the city of the dead. Dead people were outlawed in San Francisco more than a century ago; if you want to be dead, you have to do it in Colma.
There are precious few dead people here. There is the national cemetery in the Presidio, where you can find military graves. To the south, there's the Mission Dolores cemetery, dating back to 1776, the horrific conditions of which, with its open graves scandalized the city in the 1890s. In the Richmond, there's the Columbarium, where the ashes of the dead are preserved and cared for by members of the Neptune Society. And, of course, there is the Presidio Pet Cemetery, but that's a different beast altogether.
No, there are no dead in San Francisco. The Board of Supervisors decreed it in 1902, there were to be no more burials in our precious city limits. And later, from the 1920s through the 40s, those who were buried here were kicked out. Evicted. Dug up and sent down to Colma or points beyond.
Or at least some were. Renovations at the Palace of the Legion of Honor and the San Francisco Library's main branch turned up bodies. The wave organ at Fort Mason is built from old tombstones, from those sent to Colma, you presume.
And this. Forgive us, R. Boyce.
In Buena Vista Park, there are markers too. As you stroll up the winding paths, look closely at the gutters and retaining walls. They were built by the WPA in the 1930s. God save us; of the feast of horrors unleashed in California during the depression, surely this was a minor atrocity.
Yet there they lie today, funneling water downhill from the sky to the Bay. Some 600 feet from my window, the adornments of the dead. Shattered.
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