Honor death, hope, permanence: Keep road's name

TO THE EDITOR:

Today, driving through town, quieted by a gentle snowfall, I chanced on Cemetery Road, drove along it hoping to remember it as it was, is, but won't be in a few months.

It's close to being an overused road, but one of its permanent beauties is the cemetery: A serene, unchanging island at the edge of coming business.

There are those who appear to regard cemeteries as depressing places - the name denoting a negative which should not be allowed to intrude into the shining vista of hope and progress that will be the new high school.

Let's pretend the cemetery really isn't there by renaming the road. Let no depressing thoughts intrude.

Poppycock. If schools are to educate rather than entertain, there has to be recognition of the past and the contributions of the lives of those who came before. I'd agree to a change if it were Trash Haulers Lane or Skunk's Misery Road, but to wish away a cemetery is to ignore that past - both bad and good.

Cemeteries are oases of quiet foundations of hope and very permanent recognition that our town has a past on which our futures are built.

Hiding the fact of death and the permanence of hope suggests to me that we're hoping for a pabulum educational operation for our youth.

H. Jim Pratt

River Falls