Is a cemetery a sacred space?<\/p>\n
In today\u2019s world, the answer to that question would be yes and no.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yes, because the cemetery grounds contain the remains of people who used to walk the earth, and no, because to many people who describe themselves as atheist, a cemetery is just a collection of tombstones that sometimes resemble works of art. In other words, a memorial to those who have died but who are presently \u201cnowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
As one reader commented on a Reddit thread labeled, \u2018Visiting graves as an atheist\u2019: \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think my sister who died is in some afterlife. She just isn\u2019t around anymore. Her broken body is buried in the ground, and that\u2019s all that\u2019s left of her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fantastic, now let\u2019s have a party, meaning let\u2019s raise a glass \u2014 \u201cYou might as well live,\u201d as Dorothy Parker once stated \u2014 among some of Philadelphia\u2019s most famous graves when Brew N\u2019 History returns to Christ Church Burial Ground Oct. 2-4, 2026.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Christ Church walking tour advertises five stops \u201cwith local craft beer samples paired with the historical figures and stories featured at each gravesite.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When did the penchant for drinking beer in cemeteries align itself with the historic walking tour industry (HWTI)?<\/p>\n
The HWTI has always been popular in the city: there are ghost tours, architectural tours, LGBT tours, colonial house tours, black history tours, garden tours, photography tours; in short, there\u2019s a tour for every interest except, perhaps, tours of Kensington through drug-infested K and A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As far back as October of 2015, Philadelphia Magazine published a story about a West Laurel Hill Cemetery event, \u201cBeer barons to Homebrewers tour and tasting\u201d under the title, \u201cHey, Wanna Get Drunk in the Cemetery?\u201d<\/p>\n
You might say, West Laurel Hill started this madness; this historic, beautiful cemetery (the extension of the original Laurel Hill, across the Schuylkill) has built a small money and publishing empire on the backs of its deceased citizens. You might call it a cemetery that has become obsessed with itself and its own fame: a cemetery that\u2019s become lucrative cottage industry with a gift shop selling Halloween-style items like spider webs and human skull pillows to put on tombstones.<\/p>\n
The Wildwood boardwalk comes to the cemetery!\u00a0<\/p>\n
How can one even begin to count the multiple books written about Laurel Hill? Every five years or so, another tome is published with a new twist on the same old theme. This is ingenious marketing, if nothing else. In the meantime, another Bala Cynwyd cemetery, Westminster, has failed to reach cult-marketing status, despite its being the burial place of Charles Hires, the inventor of Hires Root Beer, as well as James A. Bland (1854-1911), black minstrel show performer\/songwriter who wrote \u201cOh, Dem Golden Slippers,\u201d the theme of the Mummers Parade. Many Civil War commanders and Congressional Medal of Honor Awardees are also buried here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I grew up near Memorial Park Cemetery in Frazer, Pennsylvania, a beautiful stretch of landscaped land, a cemetery without tombstones, that could double for a miniature Valley Forge Park. As children we were careful never to step on top of a grave there although when there are multiple graves crammed together that is sometimes impossible to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a teen, I learned to drive in that cemetery. I regularly brought flowers to the grave of a family friend, an old woman with white hair my parents employed as a housekeeper and who converted to Catholicism in part because I showed her a long manuscript letter I received from Pope Pius XII in reply to a schoolboy scribble I mailed to Rome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Memorial Park was a sacred space, although teens being teens it was sometimes used for untoward purposes, especially at night.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n