What do Ann Althouse and Jerry Seinfeld have in common? Disapproval of roadside memorials.
I confess that roadside memorials rank well below Bulgarian agricultural policy when it comes to my areas of concern. Years ago, the Arizona State Highway Patrol used to put up small white crosses near the scene of highway fatalities as a way of promoting highway safety but the practice goes back even further.
The Tucson Citizen newspaper's morgue (no pun intended) has an interesting review. An excerpt:
The history of this custom can be clearly traced to Mexico in the 1700s, said Tucsonan Jim Griffith, who wrote about the memorials in his book “Beliefs and Holy Places.”
Griffith is a former director of the Southwest Folklore Center here.
“I suspect this was a practice in Spain before then, but I haven’t been able to verify that,” Griffith said. “But there is documented proof of their existence in our area in the 1700s.”
In 1783, Felipe de Neve, commandant-general of the Interior Provinces of New Spain,, sent a letter to Pedro Corbalàn, intendant-governor of Sonora, about a meeting with Bishop Antonio Reyes, the first bishop of Sonora.
Bishop Reyes told de Neve he was concerned about the custom of erecting crosses where travelers had been killed by Apaches.
The bishop felt the crosses were frightening people traveling in the area, and he asked that the crosses be taken down and no new ones erected.
2 comments:
Interesting. Personally, I have mixed feelings about roadside memorials. On one hand, it is very sad that people lost their lives; but on the other hand, I think it is inherently unsafe & distracting to have anything erected along the side of the road that causes a driver to take his or her eyes off the road and think about something other than the task at hand. Personally, I would not want something like this erected in my memory, but I realize others feel differently. (I confess that I feel much the same way about vehicle window decals memorializing the deceased.)
CincyCat,
It may depend upon the level of distraction. I remember the small white crosses put out by the Arizona State Highway Patrol. Their "someone died here" implied message tended to make me more careful.
As for myself, I'll settle for a state funeral and several weeks of national mourning.
Michael
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