BY A TRAVELER
A traveler, passing Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery late Thursday afternoon, September 21st 2017, missed the anguish of those whose car crashed into the Fence but soon enough to see the resulting toppled stone column, two “wrinkled” sections of recently restored wrought iron fence, and a tree cut off at its base from damage; had many images and words flash come to mind:
Like the words, often taken out of context, from Robert Frost”'s poem “Mending Wall”, wherein one neighbor says, ”˜Good fences make good neighbors.”' To which his neighbor responds, “Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: ”˜Why do they make good neighbors? Isn”'t it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I”'d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense.”'”
Or the old adage: Q. Why do they build a fence around a graveyard? A. Because people are just dying to get in.
The accident is no joking matter and the toppled column will likely be the first to be rebuilt as will all of the others during a subsequent Column Restoration Program currently undergoing fundraising. Think about helping. Send you contribution to Friends of the Cemetery Post Office Box 7345 Mpls., MN 55407
