My Summer at the Graveyard

Observing That Final Resting Sites Aren’t Always Quite So Final, KCRW’s Warren Olney Considers What He Wants for His Own Remains

We never heard about “recycling” when I grew up, during the Age of Plastics. But, during one summer off from college, I learned that one form of the practice is deeply rooted in human experience. Since the earliest of civilizations, we’ve been recycling our gravesites.

My education began with a jolt while I was a summer maintenance worker at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. I grew curious one day when I noticed a new grave being dug in the older part of the cemetery, at the top of a little …