Just make sure you're out before five, the security guard with a foreign accent who sat in an old sedan retorted when I asked him if it'd be alright to just park over there. He was merely doing his job, and having done it, went on his way, and let me go on my quest.
I drove from my Flushing home, along familiar streets, getting close to Queens College Library School, my Alma Mater; when I attended, parking was so bad, I wouldn't even bother crossing over the Long Island Expressway (the vaunted and disparaged L.I.E.) to look for a spot. Doesn't appear to have changed. All of that is now so much water (or traffic, as it were) under the bridge.
I didn't laugh when I saw a dozen cars waiting to get onto the already traffic-choked LIE lanes; I mean it (I did not laugh, but, oh, yeah, I did smirk). I just went on, past Main Street, over to College Point Boulevard (I haven't discussed it much, but have mentioned the provenance of its name), and took a left turn.
There is a service road which runs along the Van Wyck (as in bike, remember; not as in wick) Expressway, and as I drove along it and saw the standing-still traffic on that wretched road, I guffawed; indeed I did.
Curious, isn't it, how many words we can come up with to not say laugh over and over; something I try not to do, as a fledgling novelist — yeah, me too, one among a million, or maybe nine million, who proposes to write the next Great American Novel (I have two great candidates I haven't quite finished, plus one admittedly mediocre candidate I might never bother to).
So I guffawed. I might've even laughed. I drove past Forest Hills High School, where I once played as a fullback on the Bayside High School Commodores soccer team; I'm fairly sure we won the game, but, no, I did not star or score a hat trick; it was where Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel went to school — yes, that Simon and Garfunkel.
I drove across Queens Boulevard, took a wide left turn, and got onto Kew Gardens Road, with the help of my GPS app and a dollop of good luck. I kept on past heavy traffic and a truck in the right lane taking a left turn after beeping at a station wagon with the nerve to take a left turn from the left lane. I crept past construction, headed for 127-15 Kew Gardens Rd, Kew Gardens, NY 11415, except there was an entrance I just passed. I went another half block, took a U-turn a couple of drivers didn't much like (I ignored them), and headed back to an entrance near 82nd Avenue. I found a place to park and a security guard gave me gruff approval — which I've already said. So I set out, on foot.
Maple Grove is a rural cemetery. That means there is plenty of open verdant space. I am not an expert on cemeteries, though I have visited quite a few. Rural cemeteries have paths and lawns and open space, welcoming those people who wish to visit their departed dear ones, and those who perhaps will stay a while and explore.
I remember the first time Laura and I went to Mexico we took a bus ride on what turned out to be the Day of the Dead, El Día de Los Muertos. On the bus there were many people who were very nicely dressed and carried elaborate floral arrangements. Suddenly the bus reached a particular stop, and those people poured out, crossed the highway, and went into a cemetery. We had what some people refer to as an aha moment.(Later that day we took a walk in Ajijic, where we were staying — which is a whole other story — down to the zocalo, the town square equivalent to the Italian piazza, I'd say; every town and city on Mexico has a zocalo There we found los muertos.
There are quite a few rural cemeteries here in New York City. Maple Grove isn't even the only rural cemetery on Queens. In other boroughs, there are other rural cemeteries: Green-Wood in Brooklyn, and Woodlawn in Bronx — even Manhattan, that other borough, has one, Trinity Cemetery; no, not the one down by Wall Street, but up on 155th Street and Broadway, yes, that same street as downtown.
Now, back to that Confederate in our midst. I'd like to find out why a former Rebel, who died nearly three decades after the Civil War ended, is buried in a civilian cemetery, with a military headstone.
Juxtaposed, I found this Story Stone, as they're called in Maple Grove. I thought it poignant and particularly apt.
Others buried in Maple Grove include: George Washington Johnson, the first black recording artist; unknown African Americans; European immigrants, actors, and architects; Coleman and and Julius Cizto, father and son, assistants to Nikola Tesla; Anthony Mason and Pearl Washington, New York City kids who played public school basketball and made it to the NBA, both dying young. And these, who headstones I photographed:
Doctor Zachariah Dennler, whose medical probe removed the bullet from President Abraham Lincoln's brain.
George W. Corliss, winner of the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the Battle of Cedar Mountain, in Virginia on 9 August 1862 (giving the Union Army more than deserved equal time).
I also managed to find, just minutes before five, what is called a Great Tree of NYC, a red oak nine stories tall, with a circumference of 55 inches.
My ride back was uneventful. With the help of the maps app and my familiarity with this section of Queens, I got back to Union Turnpike, scooted over to Main Street, and took that street back to Flushing.
As the bathroom in Maple Grove wasn't open, I decided to visit the QBPL Queensboro Hill branch. The building was constructed in 1980, and has about 8,300 square feet. It has a similar architectural style as other library branches I've visited recently: boxy, straight lines, plain façade. One feature I liked was its use of skylights: the feel and look of sunlight pouring inside is invigorating, and brightens the room.
That's a Q44 SBS headed toward Main Street, coming from Jamaica. I took a Q44 to Parkchester a few weeks ago, that very same line.
