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Preemption/Keithsburg Cemetery

My bike needed an oil change so I took it to Hammer's in Preemption on Friday morning (July 16th) I thought he opened at 8:00 but I was early (opened at 9:00) so I had time to kill, so I started up the road and came across this cemetery. Sorry, I didn't get any entrance pics but did find a couple interesting stones.







This young man, who died at 33, loved his Harley. On both sides of the stone are references to make and particular style of bike. Makes you wonder in a hundred years what someone will think as they stroll through and notice this one.




Don liked his cars.





This fellow had an interesting inscription under his wedding date. Now that is an odd thing to write about a marriage or wife. Hmmm.


I had the day to do whatever so I went to Aledo for an Orange Freeze at the Tastee Freeze and decided to head on over to Keithsburg to see the river and hopefully a barge.


No barges were coming through but the river was high and swirling. It's easy to see why swimmers get in trouble. The video shows some of that undercurrent.


As kids our parents brought us often to Keithsburg to see the river, and to go to the local Tastee Freeze. In those days the town was rather thriving: Cannon Bronze manufacturing company, a grocery store, and 4 or 5 restaurant/bars. Today it looks tired and worn out.

This is the "famous" train stone for an engineer at the Keithsburg cemetery. We kids always had to spot it on our way in and out of town. In the same place there is a tall crucifixion statue that local lore had said that if you were near it when the sun went down you'd end up dying, or some such silliness. This train stone actually made the news a few years back when it was stolen and found later in a local creek.


This is a prize winning stone very close to the gravesite of Jerry Tharp, who was killed in Iraq a few years ago. I did not take a picture of it. It seemed unnecessarily large and out of place.
When we were in our college years and would come home one of our hangouts was at Blackies, now Tweety's in Keithsburg. Good food, fun customers and pretty close to home. Blackie owned the place with his wife Helen and we had a lot of fun there. We would bring friends from college down and they seemed to like the place, too. Blackie was hard of hearing and when they sold out and had their last week there, the folks and Mark and I went down for a last beer and meal. Someone asked if he was "getting any" and he responded with a remark about his sore toe: "Oh, it's oozing some but I can get around." Before my long drives back to Colorado for graduate school I'd stop by and say "bye" and he always gave me a carton of cigs. Not particularly known for his generosity, I always thought this was a very kind thing to do.



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