...cemetery tours, the American Sycamore, and a giant candy cane...

I never wanted to be a teacher when I was young. I was not even convinced until I started graduate school. Growing up, I had friends whose parents were teachers and they always had homework. I did not think I wanted a life with homework.

From as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a tour guide. I had dreams of moving to big cities and carrying an umbrella through a crowd so that the patrons could follow me. It just was not a job that the career services folks ever mentioned but I did not give up so easily. When I was 17, I was hired at a local theme park to give tours of the wild life preserve. I drove a monorail while talking about the animals. It was a twenty-minute ride and I spoke the entire time. That was thirty years ago but I can still remember some of my spiel. In undergrad, I volunteered at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia and gave tours around the property. While I still very much love that museum, I did not love the job because it required me to be inside. I preferred giving tours where I could be outdoors more than indoors.

In 2014, I started training to give historic tours in Richmond. What I really wanted to do was give tours of historic Hollywood Cemetery; so, I did. Even better, instead of working for a tour company, I worked out a plan with their Friends organization and for several years now I have been offering tours where all the proceeds go to the historic preservation of the cemetery. 

2019 was a pretty great year for tours. I started giving evening/night tours of the cemetery, which turned out to be one of my favorite tours to give because Virginia summers are so brutal. While I pride myself on a good shade tour during the day, even the shade can be a bit too much for guests. 

Hollywood is a 135-acre garden cemetery full of life. During the evening tours, we saw bats, fox, and deer. With the night tours and one organization booking me as a guide, I raised $850. This morning, I wrote a check for the Christmas Eve's Eve tours, which came to $700. On December 23^rd, I offered our third annual Christmas tour. This year, I scheduled three tours beginning at 9am. On that morning tour, I was startled by a deer who was startled by me. For a moment, I nearly mistook the deer as a Christmas display.

Hollywood was designed with the living in mind and it was intended to be a place for those in Richmond to escape the hustle and bustle of city life. While many come to visit the cemetery for the historic figures buried here, many visit the trees that were left untouched by landscape designer John Notman in 1847.  

Along with the evening tours, I love the Christmas Eve's Eve tour because it helps folks escape the Christmas frenzy; and, I love seeing the holly trees, which is where Hollywood's name derives. Without question, my favorite this time of year is the American Sycamore tree. It has exfoliating white bark that peels and curls from the trunk in patches. In winter, this tree is stunning and my picture does not do it justice.

Being able to help raise money for the cemetery is such a privilege and one that I take quite seriously even though on the Christmas tours I carry a giant candy cane. These tours are also what I feel most proud of doing in 2019. Beyond the academic accomplishments through my workplace and various publications, somehow conducting research on a place that one loves doesn’t feel like homework. I love to learn and I try to share that love on my tours.