“I’d have thought the EPA would want to protect our environment a little. Ol’ Lee was designated a Historical Site, you know. You know anything about Chester Folger? He was the black fella from Atlanta who designed it in 1964. That Reb soldier facin’ west is black. You know what it says below ‘im? Shared past, shared future. Maybe the folks in D.C. don’t know blacks fought for the Confederacy alongside other folks fightin’ to save their homes. Some of them are buried alongside the white folks in the cemetery too.”
“Interesting but irrelevant, Chief Jones.”
“All we’re askin’ for is a little time to figure out how to move it somewheres where it’ll be preserved.” Sherman looked towards the darkened park. “You wait till you see it tomorrow from the top of the steps of City Hall.
“Look, Chief, if D.C. allowed every small town to move its monuments, the cities would be crowded with them. First statues, then cemeteries. Then what’ll we do, dig up every town graveyard and rebury the bones? The policy is, whatever can’t be carried away by hand gets demolished. Period.” Sherman took the papers from Jones’ hand.
“There’s more than bones buried in small town cemeteries, Agent Sherman. There’s history, and memories, and honor...you can’t calculate the value of those assets”
“That’s why we don’t even try.” Sherman sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand. The fact is, human lives are unquantifiable. You may remember some of the people buried in the Meritsville cemeteries, but I guarantee your grandkids won’t. If the truth be told, most peoples’ lives are pretty much worthless except to the people who love them.” He headed down the steps to where his Caddy waited. Half-way down, he turned back to Jones. “Haven’t you ever asked yourself why you need a recruiter? If your town is all you believe it is, why don’t the kids come back after their Public Service training?”
Unprofessional anger flooded Jones’ veins. Of course he’d asked himself those painful questions. They’d been debated at City Council meetings and Sunday socials since the EPA had became an armed extension of Homeland Security along with the rest of the government bureaucracies. But there were never any satisfactory answers because there were so many rules and regulations to consider too. Regulations about water quality, air quality, land use, growing restrictions on the farmers about what they could and couldn’t plant, what kind of seeds they could or couldn’t plant, meat and dairy consumption regulations, building codes, earthquake and tornado impact
mitigation, road improvement standards—his memory included a Christmas without lights on the city tree because energy costs soared while police wages were cut ten percent after a decade of no increases. A basket of food and a frozen turkey were left on his