My LBC Story #6

My LBC Story #6:

One of the most interesting happenings in those early days of my courtship with Shirley Maddox is that we used to visit the Lexington Cemetery just to be together and to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

One evening, after eating supper, we went out to the cemetery and drove around to the lake where there was a concrete bench on which we sat and talked. We always enjoyed seeing people walk by and watching the ducks on the lake.

This particular evening we sat there for a while, and then I noticed that the cemetery seemed to get very quiet. I told Shirley that we should probably leave. We got into the car, and I drove to the front gate only to realize that the gates had been closed for the night. However, this was not only for the night but for the weekend.

I stood in front of the very tall gates wondering what I could do to get out of the cemetery. As I stood there, a drunk man staggered up to the gate and looked at me. I said to him, "Do you know how we can get out of here?" He answered, "They open Monday morning at eight o'clock. Then he he scampered off to wherever he was going.

In a moment or two, I noticed a car driving up across the street, which stopped in front of a house. A young man came out of the house and approached the car. I said, "Do you know how we can get out of here?" He did not answer but opened the car door and got into the car seemingly as fast as he could, and the car took off driving fast. I don't know whether he thought he saw a ghost, or what.

Well, I happened to get enough sense into my brain to realize there must be a caretaker for this large cemetery, so we drove back along the outside of the cemetery and came upon a house. It was one of the caretakers, and he showed us how we could get back out onto the city street, and we were so thankful.

At our wedding, my brother gave us a gift of a hacksaw so we could use it if we ever got locked into the cemetery again.