I (Claude) remember once reading something about how it’s not so much the dates on the tombstones so much as it is the dash in between the dates. Because the dates represent singular events, but a lot of stuff happened during the dash.

And while that sentiment is often so much glurge, it does get me to thinking sometimes about the legacies left behind by tombstones. These were people who wanted to be remembered somehow. That’s not to say that people who choose to be cremated or buried at sea or dispensed with by some other means don’t want to be remembered; they just don’t seem to care whether there’s a marker saying I WAS AND NOW I’M NOT. These are largely the types who feel that you’re forgotten when your name is spoken for the last time, or when the last person who remembers you is, themselves, dead.

Sylvester Maxwell, to me, is in an odd place. We have his name and we know a few things about him, but we don’t have a good handle on who he was. He could be any one of hundreds of stones we pass in any given cemetery.

I’m getting maudlin here; I apologize. And I’m on vacation! In a beach condo! I gotta lighten up!

Okay, then: for all that, Mike has a story for you about Sylvester Maxwell. And there is something rather notable about his life, that he’ll tell you about.

Enjoy. I’m going to see if I can get some Vitamin D the natural way.

Aw, man. It’s night time.

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