A Place of His Own

Ed:  Well, we’re just about out of time, but I want to play for you, Brian and Peter, one more piece of tape from my visit to Hollywood Cemetery.  You’ll remember sharing that earlier with you in the show, Dr. Hunter McGuire, this one I saved for last because, let’s just say evokes a certain sense of closure.  All I’ll say in the way of set up for this, is that for many years, Hollywood has been reserving space and a special section of cemetery, for those who serve as President of the University of Richmond, and as you guys know, just last year, I took up that job myself.

Ed: Well, I’m having the unusual sensation of standing at the place that’s been reserved for my burial site.  I’m at the University of Richmond section of Hollywood Cemetery.  I’m proud and somewhat relieved to see that we’re on a beautiful knoll that let’s us look off in enormous distances in every direction, and what I’m seeing are remarkable sculptures of everything from a Celtic cross there that could have been a thousand years old, to lilies of the field, to Egyptian obelisks. It sort of reminds you like that American history that I’ve spent my life studying, these things last, that there are marks on the land, and, who knows, maybe one day they’ll be a mark here for me in some way.  I’ll have to remember how to get here. It’s actually pretty close to the entrance, isn’t it?

Brian:  Well, Ed, I want to ask you, since Peter and I don’t have burial plots reserved for us at the University of Virginia, tell me what did that feel like looking at your own grave site?

Ed:  It was a little spooky to think about it.  You look around and you see, if you would have some words attached to you forever, what would they be?  Maybe “he was one of the Backstory hosts.”

Peter:  One of the Backstory hosts, that’s very beautiful.