Note: Although written during Memorial Day weekend, this column is less about public commemoration than personal reflection – shaped by visits to two very different cemeteries; one historic and world-famous, the other intimate and deeply familial.

            Sometimes the overlooked graves, obscured with ivy and weeds, are the most interesting. These were my thoughts as I wandered through Père Lachaise Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world, attracting some 3.5 million visitors each year.

            I came here a month ago as much for its parklike atmosphere and towering old-growth trees as for its famous graves. My quest was to pay homage to Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, who was buried here in 1971 at the age of 27. His remains rest in what is still the cemetery’s most visited grave.

            Finding it, however, is no simple task in such a vast and winding place. But the journey itself is part of the pleasure, with each turn revealing another variation on the cemetery’s timeless themes of memory, art, and decay. Having neglected to pick up a map, I relied instead on a more informal method of navigation: waiting until I heard an American speak. It did not take long. Soon I was pointed in the right direction, though the route still seemed to require a mathematical genius – which I most certainly am not – to navigate its labyrinthine paths.

            Père Lachaise Cemetery is organized into 97 numbered divisions spread across 110 acres of hilly, cobblestoned terrain. Designed in the style of an English landscape garden, it is a place of winding, tree-lined avenues, hidden corners and elaborate mausoleums. Traditional graves, family tombs and a central columbarium are woven into a carefully planned layout that somehow still feels delightfully labyrinthine to the wandering visitor.

            Père Lachaise stood as the inaugural grand garden necropolis, serving as the definitive archetype for the landscaped burial grounds that emerged across the Western world in the 1800s. During the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, the state assumed authority over interments, championing the revolutionary concept that every individual – irrespective of their faith or rank in society – was entitled to a respectable final rest within a setting of profound beauty.

            Initially, local residents were hesitant to seek interment so distant from the city center in soil not sanctified by the church. This changed through a strategic effort to relocate the remains of luminaries like Molière and Jean de La Fontaine, along with creating a tomb for Abelard and Héloïse (look them up as theirs is an interesting story) – rapidly establishing the site as a fashionable destination. While its first year saw a mere 13 burials, that figure surged to nearly 30,000 in a quarter-century; ultimately, the cemetery became the resting place for more than a million souls.

            Many visitors arrive with maps in hand, navigating directly to the graves of notable figures buried there. To name but a few: Honore de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Bizet, Chopin, Olivia de Havilland, Modigliani, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Richard Wright; not to mention scientists, philosophers, and historical figures as well as ordinary people. In fact, my daughter and son-in-law recently attended a memorial service there. So, though it does still take burials, only if you lived or died in Paris, there is a waiting list as burial sites are few and far between. Still, I noticed workers excavating a new one during my visit.

            The cemetery rewards a less structured approach to exploring. Much like The Louvre, it is impossible to absorb everything in a single visit. Beyond a handful of celebrated sites, some of the most memorable discoveries come from simply wandering its cobblestone avenues and encountering overlooked corners, weathered monuments and unexpected scenes along the way.

            Here you will find a range of architecture, where the ancient and the modern often stand side by side. As I maneuvered its pathways – what with the up and down and cobblestones it can be dicey – I found myself wondering about the many tombs that resemble small telephone booths or miniature chapels. Were they designed simply as monuments, or as places where grieving visitors could briefly step inside for privacy and reflection?

            Some graves appear polished and almost new, while others are so weathered by time that the names have nearly disappeared beneath moss and lichen. Fresh bouquets sit beside faded flowers long past their prime, along with plastic arrangements and hardy miniature evergreens meant to withstand the seasons.

            Without the shade of the old trees and the softer greenery woven throughout the grounds, the cemetery might feel almost gothic – a landscape crowded with stone monuments, statues and crosses that at times evoke the atmosphere of a Dracula novel. At one point, a black crow passed me on the path, giving me a momentary start.

The juxtaposition of old and new has a great vibe. After passing a row of Victorian-era tombs suddenly I was struck with a fully modern one. The grave belongs to still-living French photographer Andre Chabot and bears a camera on its frontispiece. After some research I found that he has photographed 700 cemeteries and has more than 195,000 images of them! His tomb has a large camera facing out and there is even a QR code on the outside that takes you to a link about the creations he has in the cemetery. Talk about personalizing your future resting place!

            As I wandered in search of Morrison’s grave, I happened upon the shiny granite slab that marks the remains of the author Colette. What a coincidence that I was reading one of her books (My Mother’s House) on this vacation. I eventually found the singer’s grave, marked by a cornucopia of flowers, candles, photographs and personal notes – not to mention a maraca. By far, it is the cemetery’s most colorful resting place, transformed daily by the offerings of devoted fans. It’s impossible to not feel the spirits somehow in this cemetery at rest with bird song, beautiful sunshine and greenery, and closing them here for eternity. Like many older cemeteries, Père Lachaise Cemetery has evolved into an unexpected urban refuge for wildlife. Improved environmental practices have helped create a surprisingly rich ecosystem, where orchids and cyclamen grow among the graves and foxes, tawny owls and dozens of bird species now thrive.

            From the grand scale of Père Lachaise Cemetery, my thoughts shifted closer to home and to a far more personal landscape: the family plots at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Uxbridge, Mass. Over the weekend, accompanied by my parents, I returned to the graves of relatives I had not visited in several years. The visit became less about history in the grand sense and more about family memory – a quiet reconnection with my father’s side of the family. We walked the hilly grounds together, me trying to record locations for posterity while my parents recalled names, dates and stories attached to each stone. Some belonged to relatives I never knew, including my great-great-grandparents and “Coica,” who died when I was only a year old, yet who somehow continues to live on through stories told by my father.

            Not only does my father remember our own relatives, he seems to be familiar with many who rest here. As we walked, he recounted stories about families, local characters and former mill owners whose elaborate mausoleums still dominate parts of the cemetery. “This cemetery looks like something out of a Hollywood movie,” I remarked while taking in the sloping entrance lined with mature trees. “It was,” my mother quickly replied. The cemetery served as the opening funeral scene in Oliver’s Story, the sequel to Love Story.

            Our hour-long visit became more than a walk through a cemetery; it unfolded as a tour through my father’s memories of Uxbridge itself. Along the way came stories of where my parents attended prom, roads where local boys once rode their bicycles, rivers where my father hunted and fished, remnants of old mills and the country road where my great-grandfather farmed and owned land. In many ways, the landscape and the memories seemed inseparable.

            There is much to be said about places like cemeteries. We often overlook them, even though they surround us everywhere. Yet the feeling they evoke is difficult to fully describe – a quiet sense of peace, reflection and, ultimately, contentment. In many ways, a cemetery serves as a reflection of society itself, revealing how we remember, honor and remain connected to those who came before us.

            “The boundaries that divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague.” – Edgar Allen Poe.

The Seaside Gardener

By Laura McLean

            Here we are a week after the town election and two weeks have passed since the annual Town Meeting and there is nary a whisper of controversy brewing.

            The annual gathering of those voters who pay attention whizzed through early articles in record time. There are three possible reasons for this. One is everything is okay, functioning perfectly, and all is copacetic. Two, voters are sick of politics and wanted to get home as soon as possible to watch the three-hour finale of American Idol, or three, everyone was in a hurry to get to the free meal the town put on afterward in the school cafeteria. (I made the last one up, but I bet you wished for a second you had attended.) A $36 million plus budget passed with little debate.

            The annual town election followed a week later, and 1774 registered voters exercised their right of self-governance. That number would be about 30 percent of all eligible voters. Put another way, 4200 people stayed home. (Two more voters and we could have said the election commemorated the birth of our nation. If we had held a UFC Fight like the one planned at the White House, maybe more registered voters would have turned out.) This was the first election since voters increased the selectboard to five members. To many observers of town politics, it was a pleasant surprise to have six candidates running for three positions. Alas, there were still nine other uncontested races. Oh well.

            There may be a few signs still around, but an eerie silence has settled in at the Town Hall. The winners have been sworn in and there are no apparent controversies brewing, no personality conflicts have arisen, and no fisticuffs have erupted. According to my confidential mole there are no signs of corruption or under-the-table deals being made. What’s a muck-raking investigative reporter supposed to do? Even Abner Harlow, former Town Clerk and resident Town Hall ghost has been quiet. He must be taking a long nap.

            Speaking of naps, our insomniac commander-in-chief whose name escapes me, who spends his nights posting humorous videos to entertain the world, is known to take a nap or two during the day. These naps seem to occur unexpectantly during important meetings, usually when someone else is talking. Well, you go Buddy! I am all in favor of a good nap. I have attended my share of meetings where a good doze was called for. He calls it multi-tasking. Being able to take a short powernap and ignore all around you is a talent and a powerful tool for a busy chief executive.

            I find the need for a nap is becoming more and more frequent. The big guy and I are the same age, so I understand how important it is for him to get his rest. I don’t have insomnia, but I generally seem to need a nap in the late morning and sometimes another in the afternoon. If I am reading a book, it is all but guaranteed I will be asleep in twenty minutes.

            Getting back to more important local issues. I suggested in an earlier column that now with five selectpersons they might have to take down a wall in the conference room and purchase a longer table to accommodate the new members. Rumor has it that instead of renovations (nobody listens to me anyway), selectboard meetings may be moving from the historic Town Hall to the bigger fire station meeting room, an appropriate venue considering the possibility of heated discussions and fiery debates over many hot topics.

            Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and happily retired writer. His newspaper columns appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.

By Dick Morgado

            The 92nd Annual Rochester Memorial Day Boat Race had a record-setting day on May 25 despite rain showers and gray skies.

            For over nine decades, Tri-Town area boaters have raced in their home-built kayaks down 12 miles of the Mattapoisett River in a staggered race (each team departs every minute) from Grandma Harley’s Reservoir off Snipatuit Road at 8:30 am, ending at the finish line at the Mattapoisett Herring Weir at Route 6 roughly two hours later.

            Race Chairman Arthur Benner said the weather conditions were pretty good for the boaters this year. “It’s not that rainy,” he said. “If it was hot, it’d be pretty hard on ’em. This will work good for them.”

            The rain was getting heavy only as one of the first teams to finish appeared off the banks near the Mattapoisett herring run around 10:30 am to cheering spectators young and old. Ian and Eli MacGregor were both soaking wet as they pulled their kayak on shore. Ian’s been a participant for 30 years, his younger brother Eli for 12 years. Ian has run the race for so long “because it’s a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s a good workout, and I’m told it keeps you younger.” Eli said the rain helped them with the race because it cools them down.

            Soon afterwards, the boat their father paddled in came to shore. Peter MacGregor is 63 and said he has competed in the race 52 times. “Why participate for so many years?” he is asked. He answered simply, “Tradition.”

            Rochester Herring Inspector David Watling explained that tradition. He said the race started as a 4H Club project around 1934. Local boys who made their own kayaks with the help of the sawmills then in the area started racing them down the Mattapoisett River. The practice grew until taken over by the Rochester’s Men Association and then the Rochester Fire Association, which currently sponsors the event.

            Al Hammerman of Rochester, who said he has competed in the race for around 15 years, noted that participating in the race takes, “skill, stamina and being maniacal – a maniac.”

            “It looks like last year’s winner is this year’s winner,” Benner said as all the boats started reaching the end of the race.

            The final results released later that day confirmed this prediction. Benner reported that first-place winners, sister and brother Rebecca and Alex Milde from Mattapoisett, won both the overall race with a time of 1:59:22 and the Co-Ed Division as they did in the 2025 race, taking home the Russ Lawrence Memorial trophies for first place in the race and the Co-ED Division. The MacGregors placed second, with a time of 1:59:55. Receiving recognition for 26 consecutive races starting in 2001 was Matthew Buckley of Mattapoisett, racing with his partner Peter MacGregor of Rochester, finishing eighth this time around with a time of 2:07:43.
            Benner said Katelyn Watling, age 10, and her father William D. Watling III of Rochester, won third place overall and the Parent/Child Division award (with a time of 2:02:28). This was their third consecutive win in this division. In addition to the overall third-place trophies and the first-place Parent/Child Division trophies, they were presented plaques that recognize their consecutive wins in 2024, 2025 and 2026. The Old Man River plaque, for the oldest finisher in the race not having received it in a prior year, went to Gifford Lawrence, age 74 of Rochester, racing with his granddaughter Krissey Varbero, age 10 of Mattapoisett, finishing 34th.

By Michael J. DeCicco