SPARE CHANGE: Families right to feel upset over rushed Portsmouth cemetery cleanup
When did they add a landfill to land on West Main Road?
Those who own plots at the Trinity Cemetery site were stunned to find their family heirlooms, religious statues, memoribilia and personal keepsakes were pulled from headstones and tossed into a pile.
No one bothered to inform the families (surprise, surprise). They were left to rummage through and find things on their piles.
You half-expect Redd Foxx to toddle out of his junkyard to collect scraps. Not surprisingly, StoneMor Inc., a Pennsylvania outfit that owns the cemetery, also owns Newport Memorial Park in Middletown, the site of maintenance gripes last year.
Lindsay Granson, the company's mouthpiece, went into spin mode quickly. The cemetery's landscaper went bust a while back. Now there's a new one, which handles the spring cleaning. So the signs went up at the same time of the cleanup rather than earlier.
Guess warning signs aren't what they once were. Oh, yeah, and the dog ate Granson's homework.
Look, not every thing that goes onto a headstone is meant to be there forever. But if so, let the families decide if anything is salvageable.
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It's hard to imagine anything much more ham-handed than the StoneMor approach. No wonder families feel betrayed, as they had to roam through cluttered fields resembling the final scenes of the "Woodstock" movie.
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• Apparently even the most lenient judges have limits. Mentioned recently was how corruption-prone former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia dodged reporting to prison seven times.
My favorite excuse was that he had to help out in a family restaurant during Christmas rush. Huh?
"I know I have a sentence to serve, but I'm prepping these eggs right now, order up ...."
Well, Correia is set to report Friday (at last). Unless the line cook calls in sick.
• I didn't see everything StoneMor issued in its PR spiel. But was there a "We're sorry" in there someplace?
• For my money, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is the best of the best of the franchise.
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• A belated R.I.P.: Ernest Triplett. the opera and classical singer left his hometown of Newport for Boston decades ago and and enjoyed a long music career.
If you heard him sing on a trip home, it stayed with you.
Jim Gillis is a Daily News columnist. Send him email at jimgillis13@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: SPARE CHANGE: Families right to feel betrayed over cemetery cleanup
