You're missing a lot. A lot of history, a lot of folk art.

Now, back in the days when I was makin' and settin' tombstones, I learnt tons about cemeteries. I even worked in a cemetery where I wasn't wanted -- you could feel the rejection. Most of them, though, are nice places to visit (naturally no one lives there, even though people are just dying to get in).

I've seen a monument (the term prefered to "tombstone") of a carved anvil with a broken hammer carved on it -- a blacksmith's grave. I can write (literally) pages on a particular stone. I can spot the difference between Barrie and Georgia grays, and know WHY mahogany and rainbow are lousy granites for 'stones. But it's the art that will blow you away, the old stuff I mean. (Laser-etched ain't art.) The old epitaths can be hilarious and revealing ("He has gone to live among the Blessed/To his wonderful home in the dirty West" was one I saw).

Now, right after he got back from 'Nam my brother dug graves. That is, he used a shovel, not that he was really into graves in a big way. No backhoe! A shovel and a pick, and the sides had to be straight up and down! He learned a lot (one thing he learned was that he didn't want to spend his life doing manual labor), including how to hitch up and drive horses (the sexton, our great-Uncle, HATED trucks). He shot a horse (not his idea, and don't ask). He helped in relocating graves. As soon as he could he got a job as a bartender.

A cemetery is a grave undertaking, but you can work your way down in the world as a gravedigger, or work for a monument company and be stoned. No matter, the service is always great, as the clients have never complained. You do have to be out in all weathers, so sometimes you're coughin', but I think I'll stop before someone feels that these puns are irreverent.

"How long must a man lie in the earth ere he rot?"