This week, Tom Nondorf, editor of American Cremation & Cemetery magazine co-hosts the first of a two-part year-in-review episode.

The Unique Cemetery Overlooking Sanford Stadium: “They sell plots because the University of Georgia plays pretty good brand of college football. People want to see it. And so, you know, they have that crazy brand of a Southern football fan. So, some people buy plots where they can be kind of overlooking a slight view of the stadium.”

On Contributing Writer Tui Snider: “And then one of (the books) was by this woman, Tui Snider, out of Texas, who is just amazing at researching cemeteries and the different symbols you find on headstones. She just emailed me from Norway where she is going to be looking at cemeteries there and doing her thing for a couple months going around Europe.”

Carving a Legacy: “(Slate headstone carver J. David Gillespie) goes up to Boston and studies under a woman who’s an expert up there about carving slate letters in the old-school way, basically doing perfect imitations of the type of headstones that exist in cemeteries up in New England and then just starts doing that as his living.”

The Cemetery Cleanup Exposé Dilemma: “You’ll see them every few weeks. You know, somebody went to the cemetery to find a teddy bear and a vase that they left on a grave, and it had all been thrown into a pile somewhere. The stories were always the same, you know? Somebody calls a local news station ... it’s just so easy to make everybody look bad.”

Click here for completel show notes.