Re cemetary foot markers -

The tradition that it's "bad karma" to step on someones grave is a long standing one, and in the typical old cemetary it could be difficult to tell exactly where the grave was. At least in my part of the country, it was common some years ago to place a foot marker, simply so that people could "respect one's final resting place."

Additionally, a well-to-do family might put curbing of one sort or another, or even a fence, around a "family plot" where several members of the family were buried.

Foot stones, curbings, and fences were fairly common until about the beginning of the 1950's, when maintenance costs (doesn't everything hinge on money?) caused a trend to prohibiting them on new burials, and eventually to removal of the ones that were already in place. There are few cemetaries left in my vicinity that still have any. I do know of a couple of places where beautiful family plot wrought iron fences were replaced with "boundary markers" more or less flush with the ground, but even those may have been removed since I last visited them some years ago.

Most "local" cemetaries operate on very limited budgets, and it's much easier to keep the grass trimmed if you can just run a mower over everything.

The most extreme exemplars are a few very large "commercial" cemetaries that require that even headstones be "flush" (usually no more than 3 inches above the ground).

Re the look over the left shoulder -

As a small child, I was told that the judge should look to see if the devil was there before giving his decision. Another source explained that he should cast a stern look to "warn the devil away," and if he saw the devil he should then look upward to see if god and the angels were there to aid his decision.

I've never seen a judge do either, but I recall the comment of one uncle who said "If he's worried about the divil he'd best throw a stern glance at the lawyers."

John