The Hand of Fate

While slogging my way on safari through the cemeteries of the Commonwealth (neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this courier), I've often been curious about the floating hand that appears on many gravestones. For the most part, the hand has a finger pointing upward, presumably to Heaven. But every now and then you find one whose finger is pointing down.

What's up with that, I ask you? Surely they aren't suggesting that the person in the grave is going to H-E-double-toothpicks?



My colleague Joseph A. Citro, in his fine tome Weird New England, delves into the matter but remains stumped by the mysterious omnidirectional hand. And a cursory Google search led to me to a somewhat unsatisfying and specious-sounding explanation on the About.com: "A hand with the index finger pointing upward symbolizes the hope of heaven, while a hand with the index finger pointing down represents God reaching down for the soul."

I have trouble believing that the up and down fingers both mean essentially the same thing. If the up-pointing digit means Heaven, surely the people of centuries past saw the obvious logical symmetry implied by the hand pointing down. Then again, I wasn't there so I don't really know, and they're all dead themselves now, so who you gonna ask?

(Both examples of the hand spotted in Bedford Cemetery, Trimble County.)

Trimble County Soldier's Monument

Trimble County again: this monument to war heroes stands outside their courthouse.





I've never understood why the Korean War and the Vietnam War sometimes get downgraded to be called a mere "conflict" (and this particular monument avoids putting a label on the Vietnam War altogether). Is it some kind of politically-correct thing?

These were wars; call them such.

Trimble County Birthday Vault

It's another Kentucky time capsule, this one outside the Trimble County Courthouse in downtown Bedford. I like that they actually don't call it a time capsule, they call it a "birthday vault."

Cemetery Shoe

One from our abandoned clothing department: why is this single shoe sitting in a cemetery in Trimble County? I mean, really, think about it - what could the story behind this possibly be?

W.H. Averitt

A grave that gives a little detail about how someone died always catches my eye, and this one that says "Murdered in Stanton" certainly did. In Bedford Cemetery (Trimble County), you'll find the grave of W.H. Averitt, who had been the Fayette County Attorney at the time of his murder in 1893.

Wrought-Iron Gravestone

An unusual grave marker, looking rather like a wrought-iron gate, in Trimble County's Bedford Cemetery.

Little Town and Country

I haven't tried the grub at the Little Town and Country restaurant in Bedford, KY yet, but I sure love soft-serve cones and neon signs.


The words "drive-in" puzzle me, though. It doesn't seem to be a "drive-in restaurant" in the sense of, say, Sonic, Wig Wam, Parkette, Dairy Dart or The Twin. There's a side window that might once have been for walk-up orders, but it doesn't appear to be in use now.

Glass-Encased Urns

I love the idea of any gravestone with glass or plexiglass enclosures, although I wish the companies that manufacture them would take better care to create ones that are actually waterproof.


This one (spotted in the Bedford cemetery in Trimble County) has unfortunately let in a great deal of moisture, to the extent that some sort of orange fungus is thriving inside the clear glass casing with the urns.

Woodrow Wilson's Turkey Fight

From the Washington Post, Nov 23, 1920:

"President's Turkeys Battle: Kentucky Bird Defeats Texan In White House Grounds Fight."

The White House grounds were the scene yesterday of a spirited battle between the turkey gobblers sent President Wilson for Thanksgiving by South Trimble, of Kentucky, and the chamber of commerce of Cuero, Tex.

The turkeys were released from their crates, and Texas leaped upon Kentucky, but in the fighting the turkey from Kentucky emerged victorious, although not unscathed. Then with bloody comb and bedraggled feathers it engaged in a strut of pride over its victorious battle.

Government-sponsored animal fights on the White House lawn?? Where was PETA when we needed them? Times were different then indeed. The article doesn't specify what became of the winner, but I'm sure he was eaten just like the loser.


Such behavior from Woodrow Wilson doesn't surprise me, though. Wilson was a sociopath, and openly and unapologetically a white supremacist, and his public endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan was quoted in Kentuckian D.W. Griffith's controversial film The Birth of a Nation.

The Milton Lizard

In the summer of 1975, a cryptid described as resembling a 15-foot monitor lizard was sighted multiple times at Canip Creek, near the town of Milton, in Trimble County. It's come to be known as the Milton Lizard, sometimes called the Canip Monster.

Clarence Cable, manager of the Blue Grass Body Shop, saw the hissing creature come out from behind some wrecked vehicles. Cable said it had "big eyes similar to a frog's... Beneath its mouth was an off-white color and there were black and white stripes cross ways of its body with quarter-sized speckles over it."

The lizard was described by Cable as having a long forked tongue and huge, bulging, froglike eyes. Its skin was said to be black and white striped, and with small speckles. After the concentrated flurry of sightings in 1975, it was never seen again, leaving Fortean researchers to wonder.

Some have theorized the Milton Lizard might have been a monitor lizard (pictured above) that somehow got released into Kentucky's ecosystem.

(The city of Milton's other claim to fame, incidentally, is that the Rat Pack film Some Came Running was filmed here.)