Retired old curmudgeon, sharing space with numerous cats, books, prints, broken furniture and other detritus of 19th and 20th century life.

I've always enjoyed the peace and serenity in old cemeteries. When I was small, my gg-grandmother, g-grandmother, grandmother & mother would pack a picnic lunch, usually on Easter sunday and the whole family would visit our ancestors in Forest Park cemetery in Houston. Afterwards I would feed stale bread to the swans, geese and ducks and we would eat lunch by the lake in the middle of the cemetery under the spreading branches of the old oak trees. I was destined to become a taphophile.

I discovered some old photos while going through a recently-deceased relative's possessions. Among the collection were several photos of five generations of my ancestors, almost seventy-five years ago, dressed in their Sunday go-to-church clothes, with my gg-grandmother holding me in her lap, the first-born of the next generation, with the cemetery lake in the background. What a find!

Retired old curmudgeon, sharing space with numerous cats, books, prints, broken furniture and other detritus of 19th and 20th century life.

I've always enjoyed the peace and serenity in old cemeteries. When I was small, my gg-grandmother, g-grandmother, grandmother & mother would pack a picnic lunch, usually on Easter sunday and the whole family would visit our ancestors in Forest Park cemetery in Houston. Afterwards I would feed stale bread to the swans, geese and ducks and we would eat lunch by the lake in the middle of the cemetery under the spreading branches of the old oak trees. I was destined to become a taphophile.

I discovered some old photos while going through a recently-deceased relative's possessions. Among the collection were several photos of five generations of my ancestors, almost seventy-five years ago, dressed in their Sunday go-to-church clothes, with my gg-grandmother holding me in her lap, the first-born of the next generation, with the cemetery lake in the background. What a find!