What's Buried in the Back Yard?

What's Buried in the Back Yard?

"You never truly leave an old home; you just move into a new one. Since memories of your old life will always be with you, leave something behind to tie you physically to your onetime home. You could, for instance, bury something in the back yard. The family can get together and choose an item that best commemorates the time spent there."

The above quote, from the Detroit News today in an article on moving and organizing your move, was for me a rather humorous conclusion to what otherwise was a very well thought out writing on organizing the task of moving into small pieces.  A good strategy for any enormous task. 

It brought to mind the things we left buried in our family home in Port Huron Township, when we sold it in 1972.  Besides several carcasses of pet cats, there was at least one white canary, and possibly other animals which I am too young, or too old to properly remember.  Then there were the consecutive four to five foot holes my Dad, with me helping, dug in the field beyond the old playhouse.  We used these holes to bury the family garbage which was previously piled in the back for a season, until there was enough to merit burying.  Everyone did that in those days out in the country.  It was referred to as the "garbage pile" and was always beyond the house far enough so as to not create too great a smell.  I think we added yard waste and possibly a little dirt or sawdust to dry things out a little.  Must have.  Otherwise, the flies would have been a health hazard. 

When Patricia and I visited the house sometime in the late seventies, the "new" owners proudly showed us what they had done in remodeling, and we were delighted to see where they had painted, knocked out walls, put a bedroom in the basement and turned the old grocery store our Dad had built into a garage.  These were things we had thought about from time to time while living there but never had the energy or funds to accomplish.  It was great to see the new life given our old home and the wonderful family that was enjoying it as a result.  So many of my friends go back to their old homesteads to find the building in disrepair, or even torn down.  I can proudly say that only one place of all the places I have lived in for any length of time is no longer standing.  Some are in worse shape but all are still being used.  Well, I digress.

The family took us out into our old backyard which seemed smaller than we remembered it, but then we were larger than we were as children and the trees and plants and rock garden were different,  trees, bigger, rock garden different somehow.  The playhouse that formed the back of our yard, had been torn down.  Beyond where it had stood was a cornfield. 

At one point in the cornfield the corn was at least a foot taller than the rest of the field.  The owner said they always wondered about that.  I quickly said the words "compost pile?"  and they concurred.  I think it was reassuring to them as the only other explanation could have been nuclear waste or something worse.  We laughed over that.  Composting was something we did without realizing it back then.  I don't think I had heard the term until sometime in the seventies when organic gardening became popular.  I wonder how many other such gardens sprout up over old garbage dumps, or outhouse sites and folk wonder why the ground there is so fertile.  Things buried in the earth..

Since I had become a fan in the past two years of the questionable moral series known as "Desperate Housewives" I thought about how many of these wives have secrets buried in their backyards.  Bodies of people, not house pets.  I wonder what kind of memories they leave behind in the ground when they move?  There is a kind of gallows humor here.  I wonder about the house in Chicago where a serial killer buried his victims.  Or anywhere for that matter.  There are old Indian graveyards near New Baltimore that were protected for years.  There are the farms that have their own private graves in back.  Wonder how many bodies there are buried here and there that no-one knows about?  I am sure some have been moved as local cemeteries were established, but what about the ones that nobody knew about?  We used to find arrowheads on our township property because according to the abstract it was once Indian territory.  My nephew has found old broken china pieces when putting in a way of dealing with drainage around his house.  Interesting things are in the ground all around us. 

I can't imagine burying a box in my condo yard when I move.  First of all, it is not allowed.  I suppose when I leave the only memories I will leave behind will be my tulip bulbs and Chloe's ashes which are in the roots of the arborvitae on the corner where she liked to play.