The great cemetery caper

In the middle of the last decade, Kathy and I went to Dracut MA to visit Shirley, a friend of Kathy's. I remember it being the middle of summer and quite warm during the day, but cool at night. We slept with the windows open. I remember a cat spending the night jumping up onto the couch-bed on which we were sleeping.

While there, we drove to the Boston suburbs and took the transit into the city.

In a place called North End, we found a historic cemetery. The cemetery is on the top of a hill and slopes down on all sides. On one end, the area is flush up to some buildings. From the top of the hill, we could see a historic ship in a harbor not too far away.

It was surrounded by a stone wall several feet high which held back dirt on the inside but was a barrier on the outside. The wall was topped by a heavy iron fence. A formidable barrier to entering or leaving. We entered through a gate.

As we entered we saw a tall man dressed in what appeared to be a Colonial style frock coat, speaking to a small group.

For what seemed like an hour, we wandered around, reading gravestones and historical markers.

When we went to leave, the gate was locked with a padlock. Were we younger we might have climbed the fence.

Kat had her cell phone. She called 911. Because it was an out-of-state phone, the call was directed to the state police 911 center.

We were unable to get them to understand we were in a historic cemetery in the North End of Boston. They transferred us to the MA Parks Department. The person there laughed, told us to hang up, call 911 again and just tel them we had an emergency and were in the city of Boston. They implied the state operators were a little s-l-o-w.

We did and the city dispatched the fire department.

We had passed the fire station on our way from the transit stop to the cemetery. Guys had been sitting out front on chairs killing time on a slow day.

So when a ladder and pumper showed up we figured they were bored and had an excuse to leave the station. They were laughing at the great enterprise they were engaged in - two women and a man locked in a cemetery. They talked about using a ladder or maybe just cut the lock.

Just as they were about to use the bolt cutters, a short, heavyset woman in Pilgrim costume ran up the hill shouting "Don't cut the lock, I have the key," repeating several times. The firemen, stopped and waited for her to get to the gate, completely out of breath.

On the way back, we stopped for some ice cream. While eating the cones and checking the menus of the Italian restaurants in the area, we worked our way back to the transit.

We passed the fire station again. The guys were back outside and we endured ribbing about our adventure.