I just hope my arm and I get to rest in peace together...

In past posts, I've mentioned that one of my favorite things about the hippie school, which Young Son attends, is the number of field trips that we go on. Since fourth grade history is all about the California gold rush, this week we went to the Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum in San Jose. Once again, it totally amazed me to discover that- just a few minutes from my home of 19 years, is a whole piece of history that I never even knew existed...

We started our tour of the park at the Quicksilver (AKA mercury) Mining Museum where we learned about the the mine from our fabulous docent, Teri. She did an amazing job of keeping 30 plus 4th graders completely focused as she regaled them with tales of the Ohlone Indians as well as the men who mined the cinnabar and then extracted the valuable mercury from the ore. So valuable in fact, that the total dollar value of the mercury pulled out of this one mine is greater than the dollar value of all the gold found during the entire gold rush. (Can you tell that I was just a tad impressed?!!)


After we finished with the museum tour, we went on a walking tour of New Almaden- once the mining town itself, it is now a quaint, historical suburb of San Jose. My favorite stop on the walking tour was the cemetery. I've always had a thing for old cemeteries, but this one had something I have never seen before...

It was a grave, but not just any grave-




The tombstone reads "RICHARD BERTRAM,BERT BARRETT,HIS ARM LIES HERE,1898,MAY IT REST IN PEACE". That's right folks, just his arm. The story goes that he was shot in a hunting accident in 1898 and had to have his arm amputated. They buried it in the town cemetery, assuming that he would follow at some point... Bertram, however, lived until 1959- by which time the cemetery was closed. So while Bertram's arm lies at Hacienda Cemetery, the rest of Bertram rests in peace at Oak Hill Cemetery in San Jose some 11 miles away.

While not an official stop, one final point of interest on our walking tour was this cute bungalow for sale just across from the cemetery. And seeing as how this is one of the most expensive housing markets in the U-S-of-A, it's listed for only $649,000.00...


And lest you think that this home might be a tad expensive- just know that you get 2 whole bedrooms, 1 bath, and 1200 feet of living space for that bargain basement price.

And that, my friends, is why I live in a townhouse...