This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “obsession”.

Regular readers of my blog (all four of you) are already familiar with my obsession — the one aside  from drawing.

I love old movies, Hollywood scandals, obscure actors and actresses and stories of untimely demise. So, how do I satisfy all of those interests at one shot? I visit cemeteries, specifically the ones that are the eternal home to the famous, infamous and almost famous.

It all started on a trip to Cleveland to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After a full day of touring the museum (jammed with its share of tributes to famous dead people), my family and I ate dinner at the Cleveland branch of the Hard Rock Cafe restaurant chain. As is the case with touristy restaurants, the friendly waitress asked us the standard questions posed to out-of-towners —where we were from? how long are you in town? what have you visited? Then she recommended an unusual spot for sightseeing – Lake View Cemetery. She told us that it is the final resting place of James A. Garfield, 20th president of the United States and one of eight presidents from Ohio. We finished our dinner, paid and headed back to our hotel – all the while intrigued at the thought of visiting a cemetery.

On our way home to Philadelphia, we stopped at Lake View. Without a map or guidance of any kind, we blindly drove the narrow, winding roads through the grassy expanses of headstones. Garfield’s grave is housed in a huge terra cotta decorated structure that stands tall above the grounds. In addition, Lake View is home to John D. Rockefeller, G-Man Eliot Ness and Ray Chapman, the only baseball player killed as a result of an injury received during a game. It was very cool.

And so it began, my death obsession became even more intensified.

You can see where my obsession has brought me (with my poor family, in tow) at these links:

• Things to do in LA when you’re dead – my first California cemetery trip
• Things to do in LA when you’re dead; part 2 – another California cemetery – one year later
• Things to do in New York when you’re dead – two cemeteries in upstate New York
• Thousands dead in The Bronx – a trip to one of New York City’s largest memorial parks
• Buried in my own backyard – two of the Philadelphia area’s oldest cemeteries
• A grave situation in Los Angeles – more celebrity graves in the Hollywood Hills
• How do you follow a Pez convention? – another large New York cemetery
• What’s buried in Vegas, stays in Vegas – more than just gambling in Sin City
• Yea, tho’ I walk through the San Fernando Valley of the Shadow of Death – a visit to one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in Los Angeles
• Other Magic Kingdoms – visits to three of Orange County, California’s burial grounds
• Day (off) of the Dead – killing some time on a free day from work
• Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues – a trip to Memphis, Tennessee
• ’twas the week before Christmas – three cemeteries in Pennsylvania’s Delaware County

Enjoy! I know I did.

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