The Things I’ve Seen

“I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.” - Marco Polo on his deathbed, 1324, apparently? Uncharted said so.

“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.” Pierre de Fermat, though that was about maths.

We’re going to take a break from Key West for an issue. Don’t worry: there’s more! Or, maybe do worry, I dunno. This issue is going to be about a thing I’ve seen that’s closer to home. I was out driving a little while back, and crossed Karen Creek. This is of course perfectly normal: creeks have names. Often, they’re named after people. Not far away at the headwaters of Karen Creek lies a small park, nestled into the corner of a side road. This park is named Karen Newton Memorial.

Karen Newton

Karen Leigh Newton passed on at the age of 24 after a car accident in Athens, Georgia. She is interred in a cemetery I’m familiar with, one I’ve lived next to, one at which I’ve seen friends off to their next journey. The local student newspaper, the Red and Black, offered this article on the incident. In it her father, Glenn Newton, described her as having a “dry shoulder”. I try not to get too sidetracked on things like this, because otherwise I’d never write anything¹ , but a quick DuckDuckGoing did not turn up an obvious meaning for this. I take to to be she was very supportive, but if you’ve heard this one before, let me know. She left behind her parents, two sisters, and a fiancee. Her accident was the night of Tuesday 13 March 1990, and was due to be wed that May.

I don’t know Karen Newton, I don’t know the Newton family, and I don’t know what drew me to this. I guess I just really got into the mystery of seeing things. Her family made sure that anyone who was looking would see. I’ll share some pictures and thoughts, but this is a memorial place: I’m here today to relay the fractured bits of story I was able to observe about a stranger who died 35 years ago to the day I hit send. I will not be sharing specifics, by design.

Karen Newton Memorial

Karen Newton Memorial is a small park between a road and a small lake. The lake feeds the so-named Karen Creek, and is bordered by houses in the Newton family. It was a closing day of winter when I saw it, and the leaves off the trees would give a clear view of the park to the residents. Karen Creek cuts through the park, and several metal grates span its narrow channel. This appears to be a theme of the memorial: it is well, yet efficiently, appointed.

I say again that I do not know the Newtons, but I feel like I have an understanding of things that were important to Karen. The park has several dog statues throughout. A bird feeder, half rotted and in disrepair, sits on a fence bordering a meadow. Benches are spread throughout the park, one of what to my amateur eye appears to be Georgia granite. Inscriptions run throughout the park. I’ve already mentioned that her father described her as having a “dry shoulder”, which I took to mean supportive. A good friend described her as one of the most caring and conscientious people she knew. This definitely matches the kinds of ways the park was decorated in her honor.

Given that Karen herself would obviously not be around to decorate the park, I take it that her family handled the task. One could go deep into this, but I won’t - to me, the park represented what the article said about her, and that consistency to me is a bittersweet sign. This is a family who knew and loved their daughter, their sister. A family that suffered their loss. Not everyone has a spare lot to turn into a park, to decorate with a granite bench for their loved ones. I certainly don’t want to imply that anyone who does less feels their losses less. For a family with the ability to show it, they did. It hurt a bit to see it, honestly.

Through a copse of trees, a bit overgrown, is a small path to what is both a more secluded part of the park which somehow manages to also be closer to the road. Nature gives cover to a small table and bench with embracing boughs. On the table is a bucket with what looks like an old car spring and an older style reflective marker like one might see on a curve. I cannot say for sure why these are here. I could definitely mythologize, though. I felt a superstitious pull - not that I had an inclination to, but I could not escape a sense that bad things would come to those who disturbed these items, who made light or had ill intent to disrespect them. They could be relics left here, a memorial. They could easily also be garbage left by others. I could see folks I’ve called friends in my teenage years thinking, “hey, we could really mess with somebody’s mind by leaving some old trash that looks like it could fit in”.

But I’ve seen too much in my life to take any chances here.

The park is clean, and I did a second pass along the road to make sure there was no litter. Maybe it’s my history of janitorial work, or maybe it’s the nature of the memorial. It’s definitely getting overgrown, and while it’s clear it was well maintained for many years, nature is reclaiming it in bits. I think I know part of the reason: Glenn Hugh Newton passed on at the age of 78 on Thursday, March 28, 2013. I hope he got to see his daughter once again. As his life has come to a close, maybe he also received some closure to the sudden news of the death of his child some 23 years earlier.

Next Week

Next week, we’re back to Key West: definitely the Truman Little White House, and probably the Hemingway Pfeiffer house. Each could probably be their own issue, but, come on, how much material on each do you really want?

References

• Karen Leigh Newton in the Red and Black

• Glenn Hugh Newton Obituary

Thanks for joining me, where I’m one of today’s lucky 10,000! I hope you enjoyed it. Here’s all the beehiiv stuff that is required to be here.

— Lou

1  My crack team of editors² took up arms here, and has assured me this is a wild turn of phrase that spans the gamut but basically the idea is either: you want a dry shoulder for your tears, because why would you want to get wet while crying I guess (the sense this is used in) or a shoulder that has never been offered to someone in need of a shoulder to cry on, and thus, belongs to an unsupportive person. These definitions are of course at odds with each other, and I find myself nonplussed.

2  People who, like me, find rabbit holes like this as addicting as crack, which is why I couldn’t chase this down while writing.