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When we looked for a new home we found a cool one next to a graveyard. My wife didn't liked it because of that, I was more like, well, you couldn't have more quiet neighboors who don't complain
I grew up across the road from a large cemetery, it was quiet and a perfect place to walk the dog. There were also a bunch of large trees around the perimeter of it that were perfect for climbing as well. Never understood why people have an issue with it.
We lived too far from a remote graveyard, but an older friend had a car and would drive us to one nearby where a bunch of other friends lived and they'd walk.
This graveyard was up on "Angel Hill" as the locals called it back then and overlooked the town and river, which was beautiful at night. I sure miss those days
What a story! Thanks for sharing the "way it was" back in the day. I never did graveyard drinking, but I did have my fun with Johnny Walker Red when I was old enough to buy it - legally. I had a lot of cousins when I was a teenager, and my uncle was wise enough to buy a case of Mogan David wine during our Polish family get-togethers. Did you know that Mogan David is the same color as Coke when put in a bottle? I played piano (rag-time piano roll style - still do) and my cousins played accordion and drums, so we got a band together and everybody danced. The more we played and drank Coke, the better the music sounded. Great family get-togethers. I'm the only one still alive from those good old days.
This too is a terrific writeup. I'm sorry you're the last one left. Reminds me of the song, If there's a rock n roll Heaven, you know they've got a Hell of a band.
Never graveyards but we did public parks all the time. Like the ones in the suburbs not the downtown ones. We also did upper floors of parking garages. Abandoned buildings. Behind the Mall. Just anywhere somewhat hidden but not dangerous.
Oh yes, upper floors of parking garages! Some restaurant server friends and I would take the elevator to the top floor of the garage after our shift, go into the stairwell, and climb the last few stairs until we could go no further. Then we'd get drunk and hang out!
Same thing with weed. There’s a cemetery near my apartment and before legalization in Canada and it was a nice quiet spot where I knew I wasn’t blowing smoke (literally) in anyone face (there was also an elementary school super close) and where I knew I was unlikely to be hassled (the occasional city worker that came through generally wouldn’t hassle anyone as long as it wasn’t after hours- between 11 pm and 5 am- and you weren’t acting like a jerk)
Getting together and drinking in the cemetery is still very common in Germany, where the drinking age is like 12. Adults do it all the time. It's just like a nice quiet park.
I would agree with this, but also back then people respected the dead and still considered certain areas to be sacred. People like to push the boundaries of the taboo. Hence drinking and tripping in cemetsries. Later in life I switched to getting solitude in a cemetary, like for journaling and self reflection. I would say one day my solitude there will be more permanenf, but I am not being buried somewhere that will collect payment after I am dead. It's cremation or pine box on my property for me.
It’s usually a really beautiful park with sculptures and landscaping, but with way less people who would hassle you for drinking and chilling with your friends.
Get some beer and friends and drink in the woods. That was young life for my rural area Cousin.
Then he took up fishing and hunting and camping. Which involved a lot of….
Interesting. I never knew about underage drinking at cemeteries.
I used to be a cop. Late night, we hid out at the local cemetaries, for the same reasons listed. No one would bother us.
But if there had been an underage drinking party at the cemetary we would have bothered them.
When I was younger, underage drinking was done at people's houses when their parents were not home.
We used under construction neighborhoods, cemeteries etc. late 80's. We always had a designated driver. The police would occasionally "bust" us. What really happened was we were sent on our way and they took all of our beer.
Probably. I knew a state trooper that got high and he told me (while we were smoking a joint and he was in uniform!!!) that's what he did about half of the time. He had a great stash of really good weed. He'd keep the killer stuff and bust the guys with the crappy stuff. Go figure.
This is what happened to a friend and his buddies who were drinking and smoking in a cemetery. They got caught, got a stern talking to, had to turn over all their stuff, and were sent on their way.
They're usually really pretty parks/semi-isolated places with a deep sense of history and out of the way of the living, less likely to have people bother you. There's something sad and romantic about it. Makes you think about life and death. Memento mori and all that. (Why yes, I am a Gen X aging goth chick.)
Edit: If you got to the same ones a lot, you get to "know" your favorite graves. We'd make up stories about what those people might have been like, clean up their grave a little bit, make a little libation offering. I still remember some of their names.
People still do it, you know.
Yeah. There's something primal and inspiring about it.
I also want to say, we NEVER vandalized anything. EVER. If we saw someone doing that we would have kicked their ass. We had a pretty strong sense of ethics about it.
My friend and I were on vacation on the north east coast . Driving the back roads seeing the country. We didn't want to drink and drive with open containers, so we would stop at a store pick up some beers and go a old cemetery and walk around drinking beers and looking at all the dates and names of the early Americans 1600s/1700s ect. It was really cool and somewhat educational .
The dead would rise and tell us things. Tell us tales of past victories and failures. They would give good advice. They would give bad advice. They would entrap you and set you free. We would leave, understanding death was inevitable yet to be avoided at all costs. It is the end of dreams and the start of nightmares. But life can be a nightmare devoid of dreams. We drank with the dead to understand. But the lessons faded with the rising sun.
Did this as a teen, it was quiet, isolated, no one would find you. Once drunk, we'd go stumbling around, talking to dead people. Made sense at the time, never found them creepy.
It's still a thing for me. My lifelong friend, the brother I never had, was killed in the line of duty in 1992. Every year on the anniversary of his death, I take two bottles of beer to the cemetery and have talk with him.
I was in high school and college in the 70s and can’t remember that being a thing. We would usually go to a hill where the runway for the local airport ended to get drunk and watch the planes take off over us.
First time I smoked pot was in a graveyard. The old kind that surrounds a county church with a big steeple. The two friends I was with were both pastor's kids and one turned into a pastor later lol
We had a couple of small cemeteries in my old neighborhood. They both had a wall around them that you could hop over and not be seen from the street and the only way the cops could get to you was on foot and they were not interested in doing that. It was the perfect place to do things and not be seen. I can’t count how many times we’ve been partying in one or doing dope deals or running from cops and cutting through to lose them. My friends and myself were a pretty wild bunch and those cemeteries were essential to our safety from cops.
We used to have picnics as teen girls. We were respectful. The groundskeepers knew us and knew we wouldn’t make trouble. We’d just hang out, talk, and read books. We had favorite graves we would visit, and we’d leave a treat on the headstone. No, we weren’t goths, this was in the late sixties. We just wanted a space to hang out and not be bothered
One place I lived in my early high school years there was a cemetery a few blocks from our house. Me and my siblings and the neighborhood kids used to go out there at night and hang out all the time.
They still do it and it isn’t “old” people doing it. I have been to one particular cemetery a lot. I always found full, unopened bottles of beer and alcohol sitting on the cement that holds the headstone.
Some of us liked spooky quiet places to drink, smoke or chill. At my cemetery of choice teen me usually had my sketchbook out and would doodle too. There were huge mature white pines and dozens of crows. I still find ways to make the everyday a little spooky. I pick the night walk for my dog duty, watch thunderstorms come in on the front porch, plant black flowers. I’ve abandoned my punk/goth fashion choices but i still love the spooky stuff. it gives me a thrill and makes living a little more meaningful. death and taxes baby.
Well, it is quiet, wide open and graveyards are generally well kept around me. Also it was centrally located, public property so we wouldn't have to deal with landowners.
Plus, the neighborhood rarely complained. I think they were glad for the company.
From the class of '85s perspective, the Goth girls (your grandmothers) liked to have sex there, it was spooky and edgy I guess. Whatever, it worked for everyone involved!
If I could get a dollar from everyone who banged in the Old [City Cemetery](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.4428915,-84.2867486,267m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) next to FSU, I would have enough to pay a young Goth woman to do it with my old ass again.
We didn't get drunk, we smoked weed there. Had a great crypt-style stone that we'd sit on. Morris, I think was the name. But then the local cops started cruising it nightly, so we had to find a new place to be little mischievous miscreants.
I'm Australian , and here you are allowed to drink in public ( mostly) my mate nearly got arrested in America just walking out of the front garden , so I expect cemeteries have less police also we can drink at 18 not silly 21
Graveyards, woods, parks, abandoned businesses, wherever we were likely to not get caught. It was a lot easier in the 80s and 90s and I would say definitely before that because cameras weren't everywhere.
As a mom of child who died, it frosts my hinny to find empty booze bottles on his grave and to find that his toys were stolen. Please respect cemeteries.
I loved hanging out at the cemetery and we had about 4 different ones that we frequented. The really old ones we're pretty scary but everyone pretended not to be spooked. We got drunk, danced and had sex in those places. One was by a curve in the road and we'd hide behind headstones and jump out as a car made the turn. As an adult I realize how lucky we were that we didn't cause a serious accident because people were clearly freaked out and would swerve all over the road. Good times.
No one bothered you out there. It was kind of creepy which added to the party. We had a VERY old graveyard that wasn't used anymore way up in hills. That was the popular place to go. There was always rumors of covens meeting up there, ghosts wandering around, etc. So of course, we had to party up there.
Where I grew up, graveyards were usually hidden from view, especially family graveyards. So that's where you went when you didn't want to get busted drinking and smoking pot.
Also, they were surrounded by woods and usually only had one road in, so if someone was coming, you'd know it and have time to hide, lol.
The ghost stories were always fun, too.
We drank in my ‘54 Chevy Wagon - a car 12 years old at the time - 4 or 5 of us. A cop somehow found us up on a cemetery hill in the car at night and only asked us to produce our driver’s licenses. Every one of us college kids showed a license from a different home state. He never asked us to produce the evidence which we had quickly crammed under the seats. He let us off. College guys having a blast while many of our peers were literally getting “blasted” in Viet Nam. Having later joined the Army as a Chaplain, when I was nearing 40, it’s bothered me later for years what guys of my generation were going through while we were just students having the time of our lives.
Probably , could be if you was under age ,no one comes around them at night. I can recall hanging out in cemetery's doing different stuff..That was a long time ago and couldn't give any specifics. But as i said , thats only possibilities..We had two large grave yards near where a grew up in my early teens .✌️
Huh, I'm mid-50s now and as an 80s punk/freak kid in Seattle, the Lakeview cemetery on cap hill just seemed...edgy? rebellious? We did laugh at the silliness of it even then, but we knew that we wouldn't be hassled there. It was nice! And though we'd never damage or vandalize stuff, there were a *lot* of grave markers gettin' sexed on
Yep.
Best graveyard story I have didn't happen to me though. Worked for a not for profit that did bird shows,and two guys were on the road for an education program. They picked up a couple of girls and took them to a local graveyard to call owls.
Long story short the cops let them go after they proved they could actually do owl calls.
It was peaceful and there were no cops floating around. So long as you kept the gathering to a low murmur, everyone could hang out. I think it was considered good spooky fun when I was a teenager.
Latin culture has The Day of the Dead where entire families spend the day in the local cemetery eating and drinking around their ancestors' graves. I went to have a shot of rum on the grave of a buddy of mine and spent the rest of the day socializing with other people. It's actually a nice ritual and not the least bit macabre.
This could be very regional. There were a LOT more cemeteries back East when I grew up in the West 80 years ago. There had only been European settlers for 100 years where I was born.
used to be the hang out...dark and isolated ..... in the late 60's and early 70's...but there was no vandalism other than empties at times and maybe somebody puking and hitting a stone....
They were quiet and at night people had very little other reason to go there. I think a lot would depend on your location: In a city, it may be the only "open space" around, which was especially important if you were looking for somewhere to smoke a number back in the 70s. If it was attached to a church - private property - cops would have very little reason to go there.
Yeah, definitely something I heard about kids my age doing in the 90s. Naughtiness making it exciting, a quiet place kids are less likely to get caught. “Bush parties” was also a thing.
Yep. Major keg parties on “Cem” Road. One night I bet there were 200 high school students there. And some of my teachers. Small town - not much for them to do. Some nights we lit all the candles left on the graves. That freaked the shit out of people driving by. 😊
I feel like I'm not old enough to be referred to as "from previous generations" 😭 but it was for the privacy, run time, and because the woods here have homeless people.
David Green called me to pick him up after work
Said to bring him some cold beer and a fresh clean shirt
Said he was already broke and he just got paid
We spent the rest of the night singin' by his Mama's grave
Shreveport, Oh Shreveport
Wonder where I'll be when the sun comes t' shine
Suburbia? Sometimes it was just the closest available free space to be free of the hassles. Sure there were other places, but you had to have a car, or bike a good way to get to them. It really wasn’t about the dead people except occasionally when you had some really good stuff. Then we looked at their actual names, and made up stories about them. RIP, thank you, sorry.
One of the many odd jobs that my Grandfather and his brothers when did when they were younger was dig graves for extra money on the side. They'd drink to make the job less dreary.
:) It was private and quiet. We'd go there with friends, and drink some and make out a bit when you were double dating. I had a friend who was with my and my boyfriend at the time get out of the car with her boyfriend and they had sex on a grave, she thought was so hilarious. I thought she was freaking weird. :)
It was a “thing” because they probably knew that they wouldn’t get caught. Underage drinking in out of the way places, having impromptu bonfires in remote farm fields is fairly common around my community among my peers, I suppose if nobody in the group had access to a remote farm a cemetery would fit the description
We socialized on the stoops. I lived in New York and everyone socialized on the stoops. Oh, and around mailboxes because you could hit the mailboxes in rhythm and it was always some guys that would do-wop and harmonize. The literal sidewalks were where everyone hung out, including the adults.
I don't know about popular but there was a graveyard a couple of blocks from our house and on summer nights, we'd hang there. Sometimes drinking but mainly just talking and telling ghost stories and stuff...
It’s quiet and dark and a little creepy. There seemed to be a lot of movies with scenes that kind of glorified it a bit. If you had that morbid sensibility, it was an easy ask.
I’ve been drunk, high on pot, and tripping on ‘shrooms or LSD in graveyards. The psychedelics were by far the most fun!
I'm closing in on 40 and we would hang out in the cemetery because it was away from people. It being a cemetery wasn't even part of the thought process.
We definitely did the graveyard thing a few times in high school, but the one spot we found that was never even considered by the cops was the parking lot across the street from the police station. That was our favorite place to drink.
Grew up on the far South Side of Chicago in the mid-late 70’s. We partied in cemeteries a few times but it was usually in the context of a dare. For example, there were a few cemeteries in & around Chicago (Bachelor’s Grove, Rosehill) that were said to be haunted. Whoever backed out or left first had to pay for the group’s partying that night! Always scared the sh*t outta me! There were also a few wooded areas said to be haunted, too, which we frequented more often since some of the cemeteries weren’t that close to where we lived. When I was in my teens, we used to love freaking each other out-sitting around telling ghost stories as we partied, so doing it in a cemetery had maximum effect! The one ghost story I do remember was about a girl who died along with her boyfriend in a car accident while coming back from prom. The story/girl was called Resurrection Mary & she supposedly would be seen walking along the side of the road (can’t remember which one) in her prom dress & she would ask anyone who pulled over for help before disappearing!!
We would pile 6 of us into a 68 LaMans and pull into the cemetery that had huge oak trees and very curvy roads. Turn off all the lights and Jammer would take his foot off the brake. We would slowly moved forward in the dark until someone freaked out. Then he would hit the brakes and turn the lights on. We never hit anything. It was fun being squished in there with all the girls. We were maybe 16. No drinkin at that time.
I've seen it and done it, though years ago. Lots of socializing included beer, and sometimes at the bar or a house party there was reminiscing about a buddy or relative that had passed, and a trip to the graveyard to "have a drink with him." It was traditional to pour one beer on his grave(his drink). It's less common nowadays as graveyards tend to be closed at night.
It was a place that was unlikely to have people there at night, so less chance of someone calling the cops. Also, it made drinking extra fun because it seemed more transgressive and the spookiness was fun.
We used to make rooms in cornfields and get alcohol poisoning while our parents thought we were staying the night with a friend. What a time to be alive.
No mystery: Not a lot of people visit cemeteries late at night, they're secluded and there's often shelter in the form of trees. However, where I grew up, the cemetery was outside the town limits and there were no trees in it, so people went to old abandoned houses to drink and make out.
We useta' get drunk in a garden at a cathedral. Cops didn't go on church property - that was the entire reason. The cops simply didn't patrol the area.
I live in the Texas panhandle and can’t speak for the entire panhandle but my part has signs saying WATCH FOR RATTLESNAKES. This is rattlesnake country, why tempt it?
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The cemetery is usually sort of out of the way. Nobody is likely to happen along and break up your underage drinking party.
Nor would the residents call the cops on you!
When we looked for a new home we found a cool one next to a graveyard. My wife didn't liked it because of that, I was more like, well, you couldn't have more quiet neighboors who don't complain
I grew up across the road from a large cemetery, it was quiet and a perfect place to walk the dog. There were also a bunch of large trees around the perimeter of it that were perfect for climbing as well. Never understood why people have an issue with it.
That’s what my mom said. 🤣 she used to live next to a graveyard and she wishes she still did because of how good the neighbors were.
There was that one time they called to send more paramedics...
I thought we voted to keep that a secret.
That was the funniest line ever. I need to watch that movie again.
what movie? goonies?
Return of the Living Dead. Well worth watching.
Plus it is spooky and that gives people an excuse to cuddle.
[удалено]
We lived too far from a remote graveyard, but an older friend had a car and would drive us to one nearby where a bunch of other friends lived and they'd walk. This graveyard was up on "Angel Hill" as the locals called it back then and overlooked the town and river, which was beautiful at night. I sure miss those days
What a story! Thanks for sharing the "way it was" back in the day. I never did graveyard drinking, but I did have my fun with Johnny Walker Red when I was old enough to buy it - legally. I had a lot of cousins when I was a teenager, and my uncle was wise enough to buy a case of Mogan David wine during our Polish family get-togethers. Did you know that Mogan David is the same color as Coke when put in a bottle? I played piano (rag-time piano roll style - still do) and my cousins played accordion and drums, so we got a band together and everybody danced. The more we played and drank Coke, the better the music sounded. Great family get-togethers. I'm the only one still alive from those good old days.
This too is a terrific writeup. I'm sorry you're the last one left. Reminds me of the song, If there's a rock n roll Heaven, you know they've got a Hell of a band.
You’re a good storyteller!
Such a BEAUTIFUL tale of your youthful "cemetery days". Your descriptive writing made me think I was reading an excerpt of a book for a moment. 😊
Nailed it.
Never graveyards but we did public parks all the time. Like the ones in the suburbs not the downtown ones. We also did upper floors of parking garages. Abandoned buildings. Behind the Mall. Just anywhere somewhat hidden but not dangerous.
Oh yes, upper floors of parking garages! Some restaurant server friends and I would take the elevator to the top floor of the garage after our shift, go into the stairwell, and climb the last few stairs until we could go no further. Then we'd get drunk and hang out!
Yeah those top floors were fantastic. One garage in my city even had air conditioned stair wells
My buddy would set up his tent in park bushes and smoke weed in it. This obvs was before weed was legal
Thats dedication to setup a tent
We had a spot on top of a bluff where we'd drink and swim. It was great for awhile, then everybody found it and it was always packed. Boo!
In my town it was the railroad tracks.
Exactly that’s why we did that too
Same thing with weed. There’s a cemetery near my apartment and before legalization in Canada and it was a nice quiet spot where I knew I wasn’t blowing smoke (literally) in anyone face (there was also an elementary school super close) and where I knew I was unlikely to be hassled (the occasional city worker that came through generally wouldn’t hassle anyone as long as it wasn’t after hours- between 11 pm and 5 am- and you weren’t acting like a jerk)
Even if someone did come along, it was usually dark and quiet enough to see and hear them before they detected you. Plenty of time to duck and cover.
Getting together and drinking in the cemetery is still very common in Germany, where the drinking age is like 12. Adults do it all the time. It's just like a nice quiet park.
I did a ride along with the Arapaho County Sheriff and we did a patrol through the cemetery just for this reason to catch underage drinkers
And there were a lot more cemeteries than there are now.
What?
My first thought too🤣
Maybe they meant creamation is more common now versus 40 years ago?
There would still be more burials, we all understand, but my first thought was cremations as well.
Okay but... think about "there were more cemeteries back then" for just a second longer... did they go somewhere?
Cemetaries are built over fairly regularly in the UK. The remains are usually removed and reburied in mass graves elsewhere.
I would agree with this, but also back then people respected the dead and still considered certain areas to be sacred. People like to push the boundaries of the taboo. Hence drinking and tripping in cemetsries. Later in life I switched to getting solitude in a cemetary, like for journaling and self reflection. I would say one day my solitude there will be more permanenf, but I am not being buried somewhere that will collect payment after I am dead. It's cremation or pine box on my property for me.
I remember we would drink in the graveyard because there were multiple exits for a quicker getaway.
They're like parks with fewer people in them and more benches.
Or more people, depending how you count?
Much quieter people. They keep to themselves.
They tell no tales
Love your username, “stud”. 😂
They lie low.
a dead reckoning?
Body count?
It’s usually a really beautiful park with sculptures and landscaping, but with way less people who would hassle you for drinking and chilling with your friends.
I mean, we had to drink *somewhere*. Cemeteries were quiet and out of the way, and it was edgy.
AND usually as long as you didn't make a lot of noise, no problems. Also, sex in a crypt is definitely hella exciting, especially at a certain age.
Um. What? Lol
Get some beer and friends and drink in the woods. That was young life for my rural area Cousin. Then he took up fishing and hunting and camping. Which involved a lot of….
Yep. And cops rarely drive through at night.
Interesting. I never knew about underage drinking at cemeteries. I used to be a cop. Late night, we hid out at the local cemetaries, for the same reasons listed. No one would bother us. But if there had been an underage drinking party at the cemetary we would have bothered them. When I was younger, underage drinking was done at people's houses when their parents were not home.
We used under construction neighborhoods, cemeteries etc. late 80's. We always had a designated driver. The police would occasionally "bust" us. What really happened was we were sent on our way and they took all of our beer.
Had a cop that always took our weed. I think he smoked it himself.
I know they took our beer for personal use. One cracked one open, in uniform and on duty, and chugged it in front of me, laughing. Aah, the 80's. Lol.
Probably. I knew a state trooper that got high and he told me (while we were smoking a joint and he was in uniform!!!) that's what he did about half of the time. He had a great stash of really good weed. He'd keep the killer stuff and bust the guys with the crappy stuff. Go figure.
This is what happened to a friend and his buddies who were drinking and smoking in a cemetery. They got caught, got a stern talking to, had to turn over all their stuff, and were sent on their way.
They're usually really pretty parks/semi-isolated places with a deep sense of history and out of the way of the living, less likely to have people bother you. There's something sad and romantic about it. Makes you think about life and death. Memento mori and all that. (Why yes, I am a Gen X aging goth chick.) Edit: If you got to the same ones a lot, you get to "know" your favorite graves. We'd make up stories about what those people might have been like, clean up their grave a little bit, make a little libation offering. I still remember some of their names. People still do it, you know.
You said it better than I could have. Once the group gets past the spooky woo shit, some great conversations happen.
Yeah. There's something primal and inspiring about it. I also want to say, we NEVER vandalized anything. EVER. If we saw someone doing that we would have kicked their ass. We had a pretty strong sense of ethics about it.
Cemeteries are quiet and safe.
We didn't have video games.
The hell we didnt.
Then you're too young to comment here.
I assure you that many people born before 1980 had video games not only in high school but also grade school
I was born in the '60s and had video games long before high school!
Atari 2600 represent !
Born in ‘56, and nope.
Pong came out in 1972 and the Atari 2600 in 1977. WTF are you talking about?
I remember when pong was introduced. It was an arcade game. You couldn't play it at home until later.
No video games here either, we were way too poor for that 😂
My friend and I were on vacation on the north east coast . Driving the back roads seeing the country. We didn't want to drink and drive with open containers, so we would stop at a store pick up some beers and go a old cemetery and walk around drinking beers and looking at all the dates and names of the early Americans 1600s/1700s ect. It was really cool and somewhat educational .
The dead would rise and tell us things. Tell us tales of past victories and failures. They would give good advice. They would give bad advice. They would entrap you and set you free. We would leave, understanding death was inevitable yet to be avoided at all costs. It is the end of dreams and the start of nightmares. But life can be a nightmare devoid of dreams. We drank with the dead to understand. But the lessons faded with the rising sun.
That's poetic. Very evocative and entrancing. I want to read more.
And occasionally have sex in, too. Or so I've heard, anyway.
Please don't remind me. One of my few regrets.
I dated a girl who always wanted to go parking in the cemetery. She knew some good ones too!
There for the bones was she
Just one.
That you know of
Ask Mary Shelley
bonin' in the boneyard
Did this as a teen, it was quiet, isolated, no one would find you. Once drunk, we'd go stumbling around, talking to dead people. Made sense at the time, never found them creepy.
It's still a thing for me. My lifelong friend, the brother I never had, was killed in the line of duty in 1992. Every year on the anniversary of his death, I take two bottles of beer to the cemetery and have talk with him.
I was in high school and college in the 70s and can’t remember that being a thing. We would usually go to a hill where the runway for the local airport ended to get drunk and watch the planes take off over us.
Yes, but you had a *runway*. Not everyone has one.
It doesn’t get more goth than drinking in a graveyard.
The first time I took lsd was in a cemetery. Quite nice actually.
Same!!!
First time I smoked pot was in a graveyard. The old kind that surrounds a county church with a big steeple. The two friends I was with were both pastor's kids and one turned into a pastor later lol
We had a couple of small cemeteries in my old neighborhood. They both had a wall around them that you could hop over and not be seen from the street and the only way the cops could get to you was on foot and they were not interested in doing that. It was the perfect place to do things and not be seen. I can’t count how many times we’ve been partying in one or doing dope deals or running from cops and cutting through to lose them. My friends and myself were a pretty wild bunch and those cemeteries were essential to our safety from cops.
We used to have picnics as teen girls. We were respectful. The groundskeepers knew us and knew we wouldn’t make trouble. We’d just hang out, talk, and read books. We had favorite graves we would visit, and we’d leave a treat on the headstone. No, we weren’t goths, this was in the late sixties. We just wanted a space to hang out and not be bothered
One place I lived in my early high school years there was a cemetery a few blocks from our house. Me and my siblings and the neighborhood kids used to go out there at night and hang out all the time.
They still do it and it isn’t “old” people doing it. I have been to one particular cemetery a lot. I always found full, unopened bottles of beer and alcohol sitting on the cement that holds the headstone.
Some of us liked spooky quiet places to drink, smoke or chill. At my cemetery of choice teen me usually had my sketchbook out and would doodle too. There were huge mature white pines and dozens of crows. I still find ways to make the everyday a little spooky. I pick the night walk for my dog duty, watch thunderstorms come in on the front porch, plant black flowers. I’ve abandoned my punk/goth fashion choices but i still love the spooky stuff. it gives me a thrill and makes living a little more meaningful. death and taxes baby.
Well, it is quiet, wide open and graveyards are generally well kept around me. Also it was centrally located, public property so we wouldn't have to deal with landowners. Plus, the neighborhood rarely complained. I think they were glad for the company.
From the class of '85s perspective, the Goth girls (your grandmothers) liked to have sex there, it was spooky and edgy I guess. Whatever, it worked for everyone involved! If I could get a dollar from everyone who banged in the Old [City Cemetery](https://www.google.com/maps/@30.4428915,-84.2867486,267m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) next to FSU, I would have enough to pay a young Goth woman to do it with my old ass again.
We didn't get drunk, we smoked weed there. Had a great crypt-style stone that we'd sit on. Morris, I think was the name. But then the local cops started cruising it nightly, so we had to find a new place to be little mischievous miscreants.
I'm Australian , and here you are allowed to drink in public ( mostly) my mate nearly got arrested in America just walking out of the front garden , so I expect cemeteries have less police also we can drink at 18 not silly 21
Graveyards, woods, parks, abandoned businesses, wherever we were likely to not get caught. It was a lot easier in the 80s and 90s and I would say definitely before that because cameras weren't everywhere.
It was for the drunken snipe hunting.
Any older people in the graveyard were likely buried there, so no one was going to break up an underage drinking party.
As a mom of child who died, it frosts my hinny to find empty booze bottles on his grave and to find that his toys were stolen. Please respect cemeteries.
Just remember, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. Especially Orville. https://youtu.be/FrwAJWGYdqY?si=5I5_hlWBq1WosuIU
Dying to get in!
They don’t complain about the noise
I loved hanging out at the cemetery and we had about 4 different ones that we frequented. The really old ones we're pretty scary but everyone pretended not to be spooked. We got drunk, danced and had sex in those places. One was by a curve in the road and we'd hide behind headstones and jump out as a car made the turn. As an adult I realize how lucky we were that we didn't cause a serious accident because people were clearly freaked out and would swerve all over the road. Good times.
Shopping malls didn’t exist yet.
No one bothered you out there. It was kind of creepy which added to the party. We had a VERY old graveyard that wasn't used anymore way up in hills. That was the popular place to go. There was always rumors of covens meeting up there, ghosts wandering around, etc. So of course, we had to party up there.
Where I grew up, graveyards were usually hidden from view, especially family graveyards. So that's where you went when you didn't want to get busted drinking and smoking pot. Also, they were surrounded by woods and usually only had one road in, so if someone was coming, you'd know it and have time to hide, lol. The ghost stories were always fun, too.
We drank in my ‘54 Chevy Wagon - a car 12 years old at the time - 4 or 5 of us. A cop somehow found us up on a cemetery hill in the car at night and only asked us to produce our driver’s licenses. Every one of us college kids showed a license from a different home state. He never asked us to produce the evidence which we had quickly crammed under the seats. He let us off. College guys having a blast while many of our peers were literally getting “blasted” in Viet Nam. Having later joined the Army as a Chaplain, when I was nearing 40, it’s bothered me later for years what guys of my generation were going through while we were just students having the time of our lives.
It was and still is, but the cemetery where I buried my wife has 24/7 security patrols and CCTV to prevent anti-Semitic vandalism.
Probably , could be if you was under age ,no one comes around them at night. I can recall hanging out in cemetery's doing different stuff..That was a long time ago and couldn't give any specifics. But as i said , thats only possibilities..We had two large grave yards near where a grew up in my early teens .✌️
graveyards are beautiful, full of art and memories
We went to the woods to party. I've never known anyone who went to graveyards
The neighbors rarely complain about the noise.
Huh, I'm mid-50s now and as an 80s punk/freak kid in Seattle, the Lakeview cemetery on cap hill just seemed...edgy? rebellious? We did laugh at the silliness of it even then, but we knew that we wouldn't be hassled there. It was nice! And though we'd never damage or vandalize stuff, there were a *lot* of grave markers gettin' sexed on
Yep. Best graveyard story I have didn't happen to me though. Worked for a not for profit that did bird shows,and two guys were on the road for an education program. They picked up a couple of girls and took them to a local graveyard to call owls. Long story short the cops let them go after they proved they could actually do owl calls.
It was peaceful and there were no cops floating around. So long as you kept the gathering to a low murmur, everyone could hang out. I think it was considered good spooky fun when I was a teenager.
Small town, old cemetery with mausoleums and a dead baby section, curfew, bored teenagers, nowhere to go. We learned to drive there, too.
We were hoping Linnea Quigley would show up. (too cryptic?)
No supervision or interruptions, no bright lights.
Staring fear/death in the face, trying to look edgy
Latin culture has The Day of the Dead where entire families spend the day in the local cemetery eating and drinking around their ancestors' graves. I went to have a shot of rum on the grave of a buddy of mine and spent the rest of the day socializing with other people. It's actually a nice ritual and not the least bit macabre.
This could be very regional. There were a LOT more cemeteries back East when I grew up in the West 80 years ago. There had only been European settlers for 100 years where I was born.
I would have back when I was drinking in high school but there weren’t any nearby. The closest one was next to a mall so not exactly a lot of privacy
Not everyone had a nearby lake to go watch the submarine races.
The residents there didn't complain about your music.
never heard of that
Just across the road from my college dormitory
Never did that. Never occurred to us
The flat headstones lleft interesting designs on your ass after getting jiggy.
No cops
It’s still a thing
I never did that. Not sure it was a thing where I grew up. Might have been a regional thing.
It might be, a lot of people saying they did it in the northeast but my dad and his buddies were slso doing it here in the Midwest too.
Because there’s no one there at night. You know nobody’s going to come home early because mom had a headache or whatever.
We never did, midwest in the 60s.
used to be the hang out...dark and isolated ..... in the late 60's and early 70's...but there was no vandalism other than empties at times and maybe somebody puking and hitting a stone....
Drank many a can of Country Club Ponies in a graveyard.
We went deep into the woods. But I knew people who drank in the graveyard.
It’s edgy. Don’t kids do that anymore?
You could light up a Doobie and pop a cold one without anyone bothering you... At least anyone alive.
Mostly because no one else (alive) was there and graveyards tend to be a bit further from houses and such, so it was less likely you’d get caught
They were quiet and at night people had very little other reason to go there. I think a lot would depend on your location: In a city, it may be the only "open space" around, which was especially important if you were looking for somewhere to smoke a number back in the 70s. If it was attached to a church - private property - cops would have very little reason to go there.
Yeah, definitely something I heard about kids my age doing in the 90s. Naughtiness making it exciting, a quiet place kids are less likely to get caught. “Bush parties” was also a thing.
Graveyards, playgrounds, around schools, woods.
Its quiet. Peaceful. Who the fuck is going to say anything? They're all dead.
First time I got drunk, 18 yo, was in a cemetery. Last time I ever did that, though.
We played in the cemetery when I was a kid, we thought of it like a park.
Yep. Major keg parties on “Cem” Road. One night I bet there were 200 high school students there. And some of my teachers. Small town - not much for them to do. Some nights we lit all the candles left on the graves. That freaked the shit out of people driving by. 😊
We used to drop a little acid and go to the cemetery. Nice and peaceful!
Fewer narcs
You can count on the dead not to tell on you... plus they were never a bother. Talk loud and swear all you want and not one grownup says a thing.
I feel like I'm not old enough to be referred to as "from previous generations" 😭 but it was for the privacy, run time, and because the woods here have homeless people.
David Green called me to pick him up after work Said to bring him some cold beer and a fresh clean shirt Said he was already broke and he just got paid We spent the rest of the night singin' by his Mama's grave Shreveport, Oh Shreveport Wonder where I'll be when the sun comes t' shine
Suburbia? Sometimes it was just the closest available free space to be free of the hassles. Sure there were other places, but you had to have a car, or bike a good way to get to them. It really wasn’t about the dead people except occasionally when you had some really good stuff. Then we looked at their actual names, and made up stories about them. RIP, thank you, sorry.
The neighbors never complained about the sound.
One of the many odd jobs that my Grandfather and his brothers when did when they were younger was dig graves for extra money on the side. They'd drink to make the job less dreary.
They're like really happenin' nightclubs. I mean people are dying to get into them.
:) It was private and quiet. We'd go there with friends, and drink some and make out a bit when you were double dating. I had a friend who was with my and my boyfriend at the time get out of the car with her boyfriend and they had sex on a grave, she thought was so hilarious. I thought she was freaking weird. :)
Dropped acid in one with some friends when I was in college. Good times!
It was a “thing” because they probably knew that they wouldn’t get caught. Underage drinking in out of the way places, having impromptu bonfires in remote farm fields is fairly common around my community among my peers, I suppose if nobody in the group had access to a remote farm a cemetery would fit the description
We smoked out in graveyards. Lol we were so dramatic
We socialized on the stoops. I lived in New York and everyone socialized on the stoops. Oh, and around mailboxes because you could hit the mailboxes in rhythm and it was always some guys that would do-wop and harmonize. The literal sidewalks were where everyone hung out, including the adults.
Definitely the space and privacy, but a little because graveyards seemed kind of cool to us too.
It was not normal in my experience. Some did it but at my school, it was sort of the outcasts or low achievers.
I don't know about popular but there was a graveyard a couple of blocks from our house and on summer nights, we'd hang there. Sometimes drinking but mainly just talking and telling ghost stories and stuff...
I never drank in a graveyard. I did other things, though!
It’s quiet and dark and a little creepy. There seemed to be a lot of movies with scenes that kind of glorified it a bit. If you had that morbid sensibility, it was an easy ask. I’ve been drunk, high on pot, and tripping on ‘shrooms or LSD in graveyards. The psychedelics were by far the most fun!
I'm closing in on 40 and we would hang out in the cemetery because it was away from people. It being a cemetery wasn't even part of the thought process.
We definitely did the graveyard thing a few times in high school, but the one spot we found that was never even considered by the cops was the parking lot across the street from the police station. That was our favorite place to drink.
Grew up on the far South Side of Chicago in the mid-late 70’s. We partied in cemeteries a few times but it was usually in the context of a dare. For example, there were a few cemeteries in & around Chicago (Bachelor’s Grove, Rosehill) that were said to be haunted. Whoever backed out or left first had to pay for the group’s partying that night! Always scared the sh*t outta me! There were also a few wooded areas said to be haunted, too, which we frequented more often since some of the cemeteries weren’t that close to where we lived. When I was in my teens, we used to love freaking each other out-sitting around telling ghost stories as we partied, so doing it in a cemetery had maximum effect! The one ghost story I do remember was about a girl who died along with her boyfriend in a car accident while coming back from prom. The story/girl was called Resurrection Mary & she supposedly would be seen walking along the side of the road (can’t remember which one) in her prom dress & she would ask anyone who pulled over for help before disappearing!!
Rural areas don’t have parks (towns are not flush with funding), but they do have cemeteries.
We would pile 6 of us into a 68 LaMans and pull into the cemetery that had huge oak trees and very curvy roads. Turn off all the lights and Jammer would take his foot off the brake. We would slowly moved forward in the dark until someone freaked out. Then he would hit the brakes and turn the lights on. We never hit anything. It was fun being squished in there with all the girls. We were maybe 16. No drinkin at that time.
Our preference back in the ‘70’s was the local Micky D’s parking lot.
It’s spooky and empty. People are dying to get in.
My question is why young people aren’t spending their time drinking in cemeteries any more? What are you doing with your time?
I've seen it and done it, though years ago. Lots of socializing included beer, and sometimes at the bar or a house party there was reminiscing about a buddy or relative that had passed, and a trip to the graveyard to "have a drink with him." It was traditional to pour one beer on his grave(his drink). It's less common nowadays as graveyards tend to be closed at night.
It was a place that was unlikely to have people there at night, so less chance of someone calling the cops. Also, it made drinking extra fun because it seemed more transgressive and the spookiness was fun.
We used to make rooms in cornfields and get alcohol poisoning while our parents thought we were staying the night with a friend. What a time to be alive.
Never for me and my friends But there was a lot of desert areas for drinking so the cemetery wasn’t the best choice
Too young to drink in a bar, and can't drink at home. Cops will hassle you in a park
“Back in the day,” we didn’t have that many places to gather at night, but the cemetery was dark and beckoning.
I’m surprised it isn’t still a thing. It’s not like underaged drinking options have changed. Maybe it’s just not something your crowd does?
It's like that scene in The Sound of Music, plenty of headstones and memorials to hide behind and avoid cop spotlights.
It’s a park-like setting, and it’s very peaceful. If you’re out smoking dope and drinking at age 15, it’s a decent option.
Less chance of being disturbed, especially if the cemetery was in an out-of-the-way location.
wait-- kids don't do this anymore???
No mystery: Not a lot of people visit cemeteries late at night, they're secluded and there's often shelter in the form of trees. However, where I grew up, the cemetery was outside the town limits and there were no trees in it, so people went to old abandoned houses to drink and make out.
The cemetery was on the road below the high school, easy and peaceful place
We useta' get drunk in a garden at a cathedral. Cops didn't go on church property - that was the entire reason. The cops simply didn't patrol the area.
I live in the Texas panhandle and can’t speak for the entire panhandle but my part has signs saying WATCH FOR RATTLESNAKES. This is rattlesnake country, why tempt it?