The Concrete Man
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Golf courses and cemeteries are old friends. Not unusual to see a cemetery next to a golf course or even as a small inclusion in a couple of places. Or maybe a golf course that becomes a cemetery. Seen that, too.
If you play Oakwing in Louisiana, you'll notice a few things. One, it's a pretty decent course for a small city, mostly because it was an old USAF course that was revamped. Two, because it is in proximity to the airport, you can look across the course and occasionally spy a airplane tail above the oak trees in the distance. Three, you play by a small graveyard, although play is halted by the rare funeral.
Not just any graveyard. Back when it was first created, it was a black cemetery. Mostly for the sharecroppers and farm hands that worked the red dirt on that side of the flood plain of the Red River. Because they were poor, the first monuments were simple wooden crosses, now rotted and lost in time. Even cypress rots, eventually. Got to be careful digging a new grave in that old cemetery, as it's pretty easy to dig into an old grave.
Some of the newest graves have the regular granite tombstones you see at most any other cemetery down here...Not overly expensive, but nice enough. They'll be there awhile.
What you do see in that old cemetery, are concrete tombstones. They are all the product of one man, and his gift to grieving families. I don't remember his name, I just remember the story. And the fact that most of the country black folk up that way, knew him as The Concrete Man.
Years ago, The Concrete Man had attended a graveside ceremony at the little cemetery. He saw the unmarked graves, where old wooden markers had rotted, leaving no monument behind. No name. No birth or death date. Nothing to note a burial site, but another small mound of grass in an old country graveyard. He decided that no matter how poor you were, there ought to be a tombstone on your grave.
It doesn't cost much to build a rectangular form. Used motor oil will make the concrete release from the wood without chipping the corners. An old piece of field fence makes great reinforcing wire. A couple of the tombstones he hand-printed the names and dates, but that was too sloppy and too hard. Somewhere he bought a set of press-in letters and numbers, and with a bit of trial and error, he created sharper, easier to read characters. A side benefit was that the family could paint the depressions on the names and dates with black paint, and they'd look real sharp. Almost like they had bought them.
I don't know if The Concrete Man ever made any money off of his concrete tombstones. I know folks would give him a few dollars for materials now and then, or the family might take up a Love Offering after the funeral. I suspect he mostly got paid with "Thank you and God Bless you", a basket of fresh vegetables or some baked goods.
I don't even know how many grave monuments he labored over, oiling the forms, putting in the wire, tooling the corners and pressing in the characters. I don't know how many pickup trucks backed up to his little board and batten shop, where families would load the tombstone and take it to the graveyard. I just know there are several of those concrete markers at Oakwing. And at Boyce. And Cloutierville on the Cane River. And darn near to Natchitoches.
All at black graveyards, usually adjacent to old white wooden churches...At least those still standing. Some of the tombstones are getting a little hard to read. Concrete, after all, doesn't last as long as chiseled granite. But they've lasted long enough. Long enough for time to heal the grief of loss and long enough to let subsequent generations know where their grandparents and great-grandparents are buried.
I don't even know where The Concrete Man is buried. But I know where his monuments are. Simple monuments to a man who felt even poor people deserved a marked grave.
