BETTER THAN HEARSAY - Tales of the Grim Reapers Trade

ASHLAND - It is definitely a different kind of neighborhood where Norman Waterman lives, digging graves for a half-century and more.

He has probably labored in every cemetery in these mountains, being literally able to tell you where skeins of skeletons are buried.

I bumped into Norman the other day in a local boneyard, doing what he has done since he was 15 years old, following in the eery footsteps of both his father and grandfather.

For decades, he has dug the plots and filled them back in by hand, though now he only applies the finishing touches with his trusty square shovel, doing the lion’s share by machine.

“I dug my first grave in 1968,” says Norman, taking a breather from his task which is something he is never reticent to do if any opportunity arises.

Suzette, his wife of 48 years, has mixed feelings about his respites which have always been temporary, though he knows that won’t last forever.

“Every year it takes me longer to do my job,” Norman says, curling up on a stonewall to set a spell and share some tales of the Grim Reaper’s trade.

“My legs aren’t what they used to be. I need a small ladder nowadays, getting in and out of the graves but I manage all right, I guess.

“The hardest thing is, if I get home from a job late one night, my wife says I need to start pacing myself better,” Norman says, cracking a smile.

“If the same thing happens the next night, she’ll tell me I’d get more done and get home faster if I’d stop talking so much.

“But I tell her, by the time I get done BS-ing with people, I’ve paced myself very well. I never begrudge the time I spend talking to people.

“The truth of the matter is, I often talk to people who are hurting. By the time we’re done talking, maybe they don’t hurt as much.”

Communing with corpses for 56 years has provide Norman with a unique network of friends and neighbors, revealed in yet another of his summer afternoon bull sessions.

Looking around the surrounding landscape, he remembers this and that man, woman and child who is entombed nearby or over yonder.

He knows their names and their families and how they got where they are, now and forever, and what they did for a living, or if they were a homemaker, and who’s their first or second cousin.

I interviewed Norman on the radio a few years ago, one of three local gravediggers including Dale Decker and Walker Cook, who are each married to a sister of Norman, keeping it all in the family.

Norman has no illusions he will one day be the guy pushing up daisies, taking it in spiritual stride, feeling an enduring affinity with his Maker.

“l might end up with a grabber and fall in a hole myself someday,” he says, meaning a fatal heart attack, employing the tough humor of his trade.

“This isn’t getting any easier, but the good part is I’ve reached the age where I can basically speak my mind and get away with it.

“I live a mile from where my father was born, up in the hills of Ashland, so it doesn’t make any difference to me, one way or the other, whether my family cremates me or tosses dirt on me.

“As long as they bury me on the farm,” Norman says, eternally looking out over the Sutton Hollow valley and the silent community of fellow dearly departeds he helped give peaceful rest.