Pet Cemetary Glistens Red and Green
From the Associated Press: The messages of love aren’t just carved in stone at Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas. This time of year, they’re embellished in bold splashes of red and green.
For nearly five weeks every Christmas and Hanukkah season, this final resting place for the four-legged and famous suspends lawn mowing and weed-whacking so people can decorate. Up pop miniature Christmas trees, poinsettias, flowered garlands, photographs of beloved pets and tiny pet-shaped statuettes in even tinier Santa hats.
“We decorate the graves because they are in our hearts. It feels like they are still with us,” said Marvin Rouillard, 69, of Winnetka.
The character actor and his partner have visited the park, nestled on 10 hillside acres 50 kilometres northwest of downtown Los Angeles, every Sunday since their 14-year-old golden retriever Baron died in 1986. As they added cats Missy, Snow and Runt, the decorations became more elaborate. This year he has a garland around the grave site, several small trees and wreaths made out of bells.
“We used to put up seven-foot trees with all the ornaments,” he said, “but no matter how we tried to anchor it all down, the winds would blow them away.”
There are plenty of celebrity residents buried in the 81-year-old cemetery – Hopalong Cassidy’s horse Topper, black-eyed Petey the dog from “Our Gang,” Humphrey Bogart’s dog Boots and Charlie Chaplin’s cat Scout.
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