“Cemetery” by COIN, Monday, July 12, 2021
OWNED A CITY, NEVER SAW THE STREETS. "Cemetery" is a cliche, yet catchy, story of a wealthy man who ended up dying alone after amassing a great fortune. Because he neglected his family, he died alone, "The richest man in the cemetery." The song echoes the theme of "Dead Man's Dollar" by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness back in January. As much as we think about the workaholic man who has become Mr. Burns, how many more times is this true of working class folks who have to work long hours just to make the rent? How much time do single moms or dads have to sacrifice just so that their kids can have a pair of shoes for the winter? But once your kids have that pair of shoes, parents always want something just a little better for their kids. If something was very important, Allan's father was there: high school and college graduations, a few of his guitar recitals, and whenever he came home from Korea. Everything else wasn't really that important. The day-to-day fatherly advice was often condensed into a few late nights on the porch every other weekend in middle and high school, his dad smoking cigarettes and complaining about how messed the world was becoming. His father complained about how many hours he had to drive to make a profit and how government regulation was always threatening that margin. It didn't matter if it was Bush or Obama, Jerod was in a game where the winner was big business. Jerod complained to his son about how his mother didn't understand the sacrifice. "And the worst part of this job, AJ, is it's killing me."
CUT FROM DIAMONDS, BUT HE CAME FROM DUST. The pain in his left rotator cuff couldn't let Jerod forget about his father. There was no radio station in all of Northern Indiana that could drown out his thoughts, only a few CCM stations that now had Dr. Dobson talking politics, five country stations, several pop stations that played mostly commercials, classic rock stations that played mostly the same songs on rotation, and a rock station that turned mostly into the pop format, too. The monotony of cornfields with the occasional barn or farmhouse beneath a humid grey sky forced him to keep his mind active. He thought about the lessons his father had taught him. "Work hard. It's the only way to get ahead in life. Especially when you have mouths to feed, you need to work hard." But what happens when the mouths have have all left the house? He had been under the impression that there was retirement to look forward to, a time when the mortgage would be paid off and he could focus on his woodwork--building, creating--things his wife had absolutely no interest in. His father had retired. He had worked his whole life, and kept working until the end. His father was thin, and his mother was diabetic. The evening before it happened, Leon took his wife around the property--the farm, the camp, the back acres, his children's houses. Never showing sentiment, Leon's wife looked at the matter as, "Now, Leon, what in the world are we going to do with all these taxes? What's your plan for all this land?" "I don't know. I'm just so tired," Leon said. It was a massive heart attack. "It's just like he was tired. Tired from working his whole life," Jerod told Allan on a Facebook messenger call. "I just wonder if it was worth it." Jerod said trailing off.
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