In Memory of
R.C. "Pat" RICHARD
1922-1998

- The Grave That Wasn't -

by Pat Richard, 1997


Have you ever seen a Tombstone standing Lonely
by the way-
And wondered who was buried There on
some Long gone-by-day -
Then Passing by another time you found
the tombstone gone -
And wondered to yourself just what the
heck was goin' on -

Back in the nineteen fifties, a Road Construction
crew -
Was working on an interchange to make it wide
and new -
Out in Northwest Oklahoma where U. S. 283 -
Heads northward toward Kansas, and it was a
sight to see -

The huge machines were moving and were
tearing up the ground -
"Til They came across an object that shut
the whole job down -
They had plowed up an old headstone Right
where they were set to Pave -
And they figured where a headstone was
there had to be a grave -

So They Placed a brand new headstone
where They Thought the grave to be -
Then they fenced it in and Left it there for
all the world to see -
As Passers-by would stop to view this
solitary stone -
they'd wonder why somebody should be
buried there alone -

Until one day a man came by to tell a
story strange -
About that Lonely Headstone standing by the
interchange -
He said he'd Read The epitaph which was
engraved Theron -
And Knew of those same words engraved upon
another stone -

So There At Last the truth came out, of how
it came to be -
I'll Pass The information on as it was told
to me -
It seems that in a cemetery just across
the way -
A brand New headstone was installed there
at a grave one day -

And as the crew was hauling the old head
stone back to town -
They had a Little Problem with their Trailer
breaking down -
So There They dumped that Headstone and
That's how it came to be -
A Layin' in the ditch There by U. S. 283

The Highway men took down the fence and
carted off the stone -
And all That's Left are memories of it
that Linger on -
So now you've heard the story just as it was
told to me -
About the "Grave That Wasn't," by U. S. 283