where to begin?
It’s been so long since I’ve blogged I hardly know where to begin. I figured I’d begin at the end, which for most of us means death, for some of us, burial, and for a lucky(?) few of us, interment in a sprawling Catholic cemetery like Calvary. Sometimes I walk or ride my bike around Calvary, the cemetery most of you know from passing over it on the LIE or BQE on your way into or out of Manhattan or Brooklyn.
Walking along the BQE service road, you come upon four or five monument shops. The largest of these is Riley Bros., a good name in monuments since 1883. But I ask you, what name doesn’t look good when it’s chiseled into highly polished black stone?
Eleven of my ancestors are planted here, in this large plot with the big cross, right inside the entrance nearest the office. My dad discovered them while researching our family’s genealogy, which he’s been doing for the past [too many] years since his retirement. The dust and bones that were once their bodies lie in the ground but eight blocks from where I make my own home. Anyway, the one who interests me most here is great-great-great-uncle Dan Sweeney, who seems to have done stints in three different Army divisions and the Coast Guard before calling it quits at age 38.
