I've spent the last two days paying my respects to 675 people I never knew and am not related to.
The project was simple enough. Map all the headstones in an old burial ground on Cape Cod. Positional accuracy required - six inches, plus or minus. The technology is straight forward. Rent a $5300 Global Positioning Satellite receiver with a $2500 high sensitivity antenna, stand in front of each stone and listen to the GPS receiver as it acquires the signal from the satellites orbiting 12,550 miles above - "beep, beep, beep". Once the signal is acquired, wait for the satellites to move enough to refine their triangulation on your position. The satellites are moving at 9000 miles per hour, so 30 seconds is usually sufficient. Record the number of the headstone. Move to the next one.
Thirty seconds is not enough time to do much of anything. So you read the stones and wonder about the people below you. What does Hannah Agry, died on Nov 19, 1792, in her 27th year think of the short, bearded fellow with the odd, beeping yellow box standing above her? Is she amused? Angry? Is Rebecca H., wife of Josiah Melcher, happy to be getting some attention 164 years after her passing? Or is she not thinking at all because she simply turned to dust long ago and that was that. Repeat 675 times.
2 comments:
You mean that not one of those 675 reached out of the ground and grabbed you?? No juicy gossip on any of those stones??
Looks like a very distant place. Nowadays technology is so interesting. It is nice to know that that place is now documneted for history books.
Post a Comment