The wall that separated the Beach Towers Apartments from El Cementerio Puerto Rico Memorial was 6 feet tall, easily scalable, and, in fact, frequently scaled by 7 year old Cheito Pagan and his friends. The summer of '67 had been very stormy, and the wear on the north wall along the beach was severe. The sand had disappeared along the wall, and chunks of concrete and tangled rebar kept the water from further incursions into the cemetery. On that side, the headstones were unkempt and tumbledown. The salt air could not mask the smell of old plastic flowers and formaldehyde. Cheito did not do mischief when he explored the boneyard. He preferred to find interesting memorials and mausoleums, read the names and dates on them, and try to imagine what the man, woman or occasional child had been like. The older the grave the better. The oldest found: Jose Enrique Denton Del Topo, born in 1854, and died 1923, the year his own father had been born. Del Topo? What a fantastic name! The Mole? No! From Topo in Calheta, the Azores!
Jose M. Caldas, April 12, 2014.
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