Tuesday’s column: Adventures in tombstone shopping
Becky Mushko, at her family cemetry in Union Hall. Monday, she ordered a new tombstone for herself to replace the one she bought in 2005 but was later stolen. | Shot by Dan
It’s not every day that a reader invites you to go tombstone shopping. So when Becky Mushko did — to replace one that was stolen five years ago — how could I resist?
That’s how I found myself at Add a Touch Monuments, just west of Rocky Mount on Monday morning, surveying Georgia granite display models.
“Have you ever seen anyone so excited about buying a tombstone?” asked Shirley Winingham, owner of Add a Touch.
The answer was certainly no.
Mushko, 66, is a freelance writer, retired Roanoke teacher and former English instructor at Ferrum College and author of the blog Peevish Pen.
She bought the tombstone seven years ago as a Christmas present for herself, she said.
Why does someone buy her own tombstone?
“I’m an only child, with no children, and my husband does not have very good taste,” Mushko explained. There was no telling what kind of ugly grave marker he would choose for her, so “I figured I’d better take care of it.”
Besides, Add a Touch Monuments was running a “5 percent off” sale back then and Mushko is a sucker for a bargain.
The stone she chose in 2005 was two feet wide and two feet tall, light gray with a polished front and back.
Together with its stone base, it weighed 800 pounds. It had Mushko’s name and birth date engraved on it, along with some grape leaves. Delivered, it cost $575.
She had it installed at her tiny, fenced-in family cemetery along Standiford Road in the Union Hall area of Franklin County. And then two years later it disappeared.
Why was it stolen? The answer to that one is much more complicated. The back story sounds like a plot from a redneck horror flick.
READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.
May 1, 2012 - 6:00 AM
Getting along with neighbors is a 2 sided coin. I suspect Becky is not as pure as the wind driven snow on this and I doubt redneck suspect #1 is either. The truth is somewhere between both sides’ stories.
Once the area where her tombstone is becomes “occupied” she won’t be able to do anything about it if the stone is again purloined. And if that happens and if her husband survives her, she will end up with a stone that suited his taste and not hers.
There are bigger things to be concerned about, and better uses of $1,246 to me.
What an unsurprisingly bizarre take, BobH. Are you to decide where she spends her money? Precisely what sort of behavior on her part would justify stealing her belongings or sticking a deer head in her mail box?
Are you s afraid of offending a bunch if backwoods inbreds that you’re afraid to call it what it is? So strange. It mist be exhausting to have to always take the opposing viewpoint of Dan’s, regardless of how nonsensical you end up sounding.
That people are that low down, no matter what you might believe the victims have done to “deserve” it, is all part of the bigger and far more insidious problem in this nation. Good luck to the Mushko’s, it sounds like they are living in “Deliverance” country. Sad, just sad. Personally, I would have invested in some security cameras, fencing, and guard dogs too if I could afford it.
You know what? “Good old boys” never were much good, when they thought they could get away with it.
A student from Staunton River who was bullied, started a campaign to end bullying and as part of her efforts, she put up a Facebook page too. Having been “born and raised” in the community, I know many of the people on the site. Would you believe the former bullies who are on there pledging their support to end bullying? What a bunch of losers. I have no doubt they would deny it to this day (and yes, I said so), but I know better.
Kristen,
The law of physics is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Redneck suspect #1 is not likely a choir boy to be sure, but even the most bottom of the line redneck I have known needed some reason to keep a “feud” going.
Predominantly here, this is one side of the story. That is all that is written here other than a few blurbs from when redneck suspect #1 was interviewed.
Having been a recipient of an “in your face” anti hunting neighbor who warned me if she even saw a bullet hole in one of her trees she was going to call the sheriff, I can tell you that I have my doubts about Becky objectively explaining her side of the story.
BTW, I had to tell the anti-hunting kook that I hunt with a bow and she needed to vent her anti-hunting ciews somewhere else.
Sandi Saunders
Good luck on those anti-bullying campaigns. An assistant principal at a local middle school was known as “Billy the Bully” while he was in school. It’s the perfect job for a bully. Bullying works, up to a point. That’s why people do it.
Maybe its just me…
But i think id be a lot more hacked off if someone
left me a headstone to contemplate.
Theres something a little morose and self aggrandizing
anyway about sportin’ your own tombstone.
Sounds a little Mark Twain-esque..
Someone gettin’ to eavesdrop on their own funeral.
…http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/mtwain/bl-mtwain-tom-15.htm