I spend several hours each day volunteering with others from Port Townsend to help restore one of the most historic and special places on our peninsula, Laurel Grove Cemetery.
Our area’s history is literally written here in stone.
Nearly all of the founders and good folks of Port Townsend have been buried here since the Masonic Lodge founded it more than 140 years ago, according to county records.
Because of our restoration work it is once again becoming a wonderful place to reflect, walk amongst the past and to pay respect.
Yet, every day we watch as more than thirty people and their pets parade through these sacred acres as if it was their own off-leash dog park.
Tennis balls bounce off marble monuments, tossed sticks scar marble names and dates, flowers left by families are soaked in urine or pulled and dragged apart.
The diggers head for new graves to see what lurks beneath.
Plots and pathways receive dozens of poop bombs that are left to surprise other visitors.
Dogs race unleashed as their people look on.
Some owners rock back and forth on fragile century-old tombstones mindlessly talking on their phones while others mount memorial benches and just wait for their dogs to return.
Wet or mud-soaked animals have dirtied, sniffed and harassed funeral attendees and sole mourners in more graveside instances than I want to recount.
Signs have been posted and verbal reminders go ignored.
Laurel Grove Cemetery has literally gone to the dogs.
We owe what we hold dear in Port Townsend to the people who rest here.
I always believed we were better than that.
Bruce Miller,
Port Townsend