884 is dead, of course. 884 has been dead since at least 1961, when they stopped burying bodies on the hill known as Sunny Side on the grounds of Springfield.

Last week I wrote about the very interesting Old Trinity Cemetery and the people who saved it from oblivion, but this is a different sort of strange cemetery and strange area history. It’s Sunny Side.

Yes, Sunny Side, which is a nice name, I guess, for a hill filled with unmarked graves. Okay, they’re marked actually, each with a number, starting with 1 and ending with 884, as far as I can tell. Numbers 1 and 884 are lucky. They’re still marked in marble.

Most of the original marble stones, like that of 412, which is covered in moss, were stolen and replaced with cheaper material, concrete, as far as I can tell.

Each number, by the way, represents a dead person, who was once a patient at the mental hospital. The cemetery operated from 1899 to 1961, and these are the remains of patients who donated parts of themselves to science.

There are Easter flowers on sale today out by the big road away from the cemetery and across from Taco Bell.

There are flowers at Sunny Side, too, but they fell down. When I set them up to take a picture, they fell down again before I could snap the shutter, so I left them down. It’s nice to know that someone remembered one of the numbers buried on the hill. There’s a price tag sticking out from the top of the vase. $29.99.

Robins crisscross the stones, perch above the grass and listen for the worms that work underground among the bones.

There’s a cross at the top of the hill.

And beyond the cross there’s barbed wire and more dead things. Dead buildings. Dead plows. Dead Chevies.

Why? Beats me. There was something up there once, maybe a farm that looked down on a graveyard where every so often they would dig a hole and drop in a forgotten mental patient. Or epileptic. There was a whole section over there once, it’s still there, actually, called the Epileptic Colony, only now it’s empty.

Between the graveyard and the dead Chevy, they put up wire and built buildings and made plans and then it all ended for some reason, a fire maybe. There’s a lot of charred, crumbled roof.

Can someone tell me what happened up there?

I guess that’s a mystery for another time. Today is Easter, a day of hope and resurrection.

So good luck, 884. And Happy Easter. I hope you’re in a better place beyond this forgotten hill, someplace where the sun shines and everyone knows your name.

Okay, you won’t actually be laughing out loud with a saint, you’ll be laughing out loud with funny people for the benefit of a church named after a saint. In other words, it’s a benefit for the St. Barnabas Parish.

The church is hoping to consolidate the church offices and Sunday School facilities at the same location, and thus, Comedy Night, also known as “St. Barnabas’ Laugh Out Loud.“

One of the comedians, by the way, Al Romas, is the funny brother of church member Linda Romas Dore, Sykesville’s number one Beatles’ quoting Paul McCartney fan.

The event takes place at the Gamber Fire Hall in Finksburg on Saturday, April 28 from 7 to 11. And yeah, that would be PM.

I have a question that one of the comedians might care to address. It’s something that’s always bugged me. Isn’t laugh out loud redundant?

I mean, the whole LOL thing. What’s with that? Shouldn’t it just be L?

St. Barnabas’ Laugh Out Loud

What: Comedy Show, including Silent Auction, Money Wheel, 50/50 Raffle, Dinner and Cash Bar

When: Saturday, April 28th, 2012,  7 PM-11PM,  Doors Open 6:30 PM for Silent Auction Preview

Where: Gamber Fire Hall, Route 32 and Niner Road, Finksburg, MD

How much: $35 for Dinner and Comedy Show (Advanced Ticket Sales Only)

For Tickets and Inquiries, contact the Parish Administrator at 410-795-0767

Like St. Barnabas Episcopal Church on Facebook

You know the place. Eldersburg, Maryland. The intersection of 32 and 26. One of the least scenic places on earth, although it does have a sign now that says “Welcome to Eldersburg” at an intersection that doesn’t seem welcoming at all.

And after your trip to Panera or Food Lion or Cobblestones, as you sit at the intersection, waiting forever to turn left on 32, instead of looking down out the driver’s side window at the pile of cigarette butts lined from tire to tire and beyond, you can stare toward that sign, and think, at least that someone had, or has, good intentions.

And you can thank the Freedom Area Citizens Council for the sign, and then you can head toward Sykesville where history still lives and not everything’s been ripped down, bulldozed under, and built over with nothing more than convenience and dollars in mind.

Eldersburg – The Lost Frontier

And you could reflect on the fact that although you can’t find any sign of anything remotely old or historic, the sign does say, “Settled in 1750.”

And you could realize that a long time ago, before the lonely welcome sign, before all the houses and the traffic and the strip malls, before Wal-Mart and Home Depot, before Starbucks and Glory Days and countless fast food joints, before all the chain restaurants, and the struggling Moms and Pops that come and go, long before the old place that was once new and seems forever to be dying, called “Carrolltown Center,” Eldersburg was a different sort of place, farmland mostly.

It was, in fact, the frontier.

And during that time there was a small chapel, referred to as a chapel of ease, where the farmers could gather to pray, and beside that chapel, there was a burial ground, and across the way was Welsh’s tavern. The area was referred to as Delaware Hundred. And fighting Indians was an actual concern.

They built the chapel five years before the Revolutionary War and renamed it to Holy Trinity Church sometime after 1830, but eventually, sometime around the Second World War, the old abandoned, crumbling remains of the building were taken down and buried. Just as today, across the street from where the chapel stood, they’re bulldozing the grounds where the original tavern stood since the 1760s.

It’s progress, you know, free enterprise, and we can never have enough banks, beauty salons, and Chinese restaurants. We can never have enough gasoline, coffee, and convenience. Soon, I hear, there may be a Royal Farms there on the corner by the welcome sign, and another place to fill up on caffeine, Tastycakes, smokes, and gasoline as we rush about our lives.

The Hidden Graves

But nearby, hidden among all this modernization, there’s a secret place. Sacred even. And quiet. That really does go back to 1750 or thereabouts.

It’s called Old Trinity Cemetery. It sits right off Liberty Road, out of view, fortunately perhaps, nearly lost behind another Eldersburg shopping center with a Mexican restaurant, a place that sells mattresses, a bar, Chinese takeout, a Quiznos for awhile, and Rita’s.

It’s the old burial ground, you see, that surrounded the long gone chapel. It was discovered and saved. It has friends. It’s a place where James Sykes once walked and Susanna Warfield. It’s surrounded by civilization, if that’s what you want to call it, but it lives in another century.

And this Saturday was clean up day. And the Friends of Old Trinity Cemetery, as they do every spring, came to spruce up the grounds.

Pictured, left to right are: Jane Cohen, Ann Strauss, Bill Conaway, Larry Ireland, Ann Horvath, Jim Dorsey, Elaine Breeding, and George Horvath.

Today was cold and dark, and there were only eight, but once again, the grounds are clean. The hidden cemetery is safe and unforgotten. The leaves are raked and hauled away. The stones are standing. The bones are buried. The ghosts are resting. Ready for another year of being mostly ignored, as Eldersburg swirls around it and the voices of children eating water ice and custard drift through the trees on warm summer nights.

The friends will return next spring to do it again.

There are over a hundred friends of Old Trinity now. They have a new website in the making, courtesy of Sykesville Design. They have rakes. They have a book to sell. They have a story to tell.

It’s a good one right in the heart of Eldersburg, settled in 1750.

If you know golf you know Swilcan Bridge on St. Andrews golf course in Scotland. And if you know Sykesville you probably know the town’s Main Street Manager, Ivy Wells. And if you know Ivy Wells, you may know her son, Josh.

Here’s Josh Wells on Swilcan Bridge at St. Andrews. No, he’s not looking for his ball in the water. He’s doing the Tim Tebow thing.

Swilcan Bridge. It’s like Mecca to Muslims. It’s like Rome to Catholics. It’s like the end zone to Tim Tebow. To golfers it’s a holy place.

Josh, who’s 20 and on the Dean’s list, is a junior at Penn State in the PGA golf program.

Yes, folks, you can major in golf.

Yes, folks, it’s true. Eldersburg now has a Starbucks that’s not inside a grocery store. It’s inside a bank.

Okay, it used to be a bank, now it’s a Starbucks.

A really big Starbucks. A beautiful Starbucks. A super Starbucks. The largest Starbucks in North America. If not the known universe.

It sells coffee! Now all it needs are customers. Plus it has outdoor seating to capture that Eldersburg ambiance. In other words, you can sit outside and enjoy your coffee while staring at a parking lot. Or Cobblestones. No, not the quaint sort of cobblestones you find in old parts of Philadelphia. Cobblestones the bar. (A very nice bar I might add.)

So stay inside. It’s beautiful. Local resident, Anna, who is 10, says: “This is the best coffee I’ve ever been not allowed to drink.”

If you’re looking for it you’ll find it at the old K Bank location at 1438 Liberty Road in Eldersburg. I’m not sure what happened to the K Bank. And I don’t care.

We’ve got plenty of banks. What we need are hangouts and hangouts inside grocery stores don’t count.

Hey hey, my my… They say they might move Sykesville’s rotting old blue caboose.

Rock and Roll can never die…

They say they might even renovate it and make it pretty in one way or another.

There’s more to the picture… But when something turns itself into a work of art without human intervention.

Than meets the eye… When something rusts itself into a state of sublime beauty.

Hey hey, my my… Maybe it’s best to leave it to its rust.

Neil Young was not inspired by Sykesville’s blue caboose when he wrote these lyrics. He was actually inspired by Devo. But yet…

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There’s more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.

Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this, but they give you that
And once you’re gone, you can’t come back
When you’re out of the blue and into the black.

The king is gone but he’s not forgotten
Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?
It’s better to burn out ’cause rust never sleeps
The king is gone but he’s not forgotten.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There’s more to the picture
Than meets the eye.

Spring’s coming for sure. You can sense it in Warfield in Sykesville where the sound of Spring Peepers fills the air and foolish men with blue hair climb on toppled trees.

Where old dead trees form works of art.

And cold water froths and flows and waits for summer.

Photos by Andrea White.

Okay, don’t be alarmed, he didn’t actually capture the national bird, except digitally.

The photographer is our friend Brian Rayford of M5 Signs.

And today he got several shots over at Piney Run (I’m not telling you exactly where) of the eagle in its nest and another eagle flying about, apparently in search of food.

Bald Eagles, as you know, are the national bird. By the end of the 20^th century, they were almost extinct on the continent, although doing fine in Alaska and Canada. They were once on the list of endangered species, but moved off that to the list of threatened species back in 1995, and were then removed from that list in 2007.

And there’s a pair in our neighborhood, and hopefully a couple more on the way.

Several weeks ago while sitting in his portable blind taking pictures of ducks at Piney Run, Brian says, “I noticed a very large nest across the lake and when I zoomed in I saw a bird with a white top.”

So today he went back and got this picture and several others.

He says, “The female was in the nest and the male was flying around looking for dinner.”

But I suppose he can’t really be sure of that. The male and females are identical in appearance and the female is actually the larger of the two by some 25 percent.

Brian used a Nikon D7000 camera with a 200mm-500mm lens to get this shot and several others and intends to return for more over the next few weeks.

A couple years ago we had snowmageddon and tons of cool snow shots. This year so far…well…here’s a shot of a buried Silly Willy. Well, actually it’s Silly Willy’s car. I assume Silly himself is in the house entertaining some kids.

Undeterred by a ferocious storm, Sykesville's Silly Willy makes a house call on Harlan Lane.

And here’s former mayor Jon Herman’s idea of a snow man.

But just in case you forgot…

Sykesville Under siege back when snow was snow.

So, how many of you guys, and I do mean guys, have ever been inside Sweet Simplici-Tea on Main Street in Sykesville? Yeah, I guess it’s not really a guy’s place. It looks like this inside.

And, oh, man, do they have great scones?

Yeah, they do. We happened to stop in on a whim after the tour of Jon Herman’s cool old renovated house on the hill. (Actually one of several he’s renovated, this just happens to be the one he lives in.)

Former Sykesville Mayor Jon Herman lives in this house overlooking the town.

So back to tea. It’s actually quite nice inside – spacious, sort of quiet, with cool little window nooks where you can look out from an old building onto an old street.

Andrea White of Sykesville Online looks out on Main Street from Sweet Simplici-Tea

Laugh at your husband’s funny jokes. (First you gotta drag him in there and feed him a scone.)

Or take a picture of anything but your husband.

Check it out, guys. It’s frilly. There’s no sign of a football. But it’s delicious.