The Bird's Roost.

In the comment section of my post on Dog Patch , dlc asked me if this was the area where Charlie Parker is buried. I was back in the general vicinity again today so I thought Id check if Bird was in fact buried in one of the two cemeteries that border each side of Blue Ridge. As you can see from the sign and accompanying photos Charlie Parker is in fact buried alongside Addie, his mother, in Lincoln Cemetery. To be honest I was surprised to see that the grave of this city's most famous and talented son didn't seem very fitting.

Lincoln cemetery is surrounded by a chain link fence that has seen better days. The markers are the flush set marble and granite slabs. The best description I can give you is that its a drab 2 or 3 acre piece of ground, haphazardly maintained and lacking any real character. Lincoln Cemetery is occupied by poor people as best I can tell.

100 yards from the simple piece of ground that holds one of the great masters of his craft, there is another cemetery. Mount Washington. The contrast between the two couldn't be more stark. Where Lincoln Cemetery is bleak and plain, just across the road is a display of grandiosity and wealth. I drove through both places, and this is what I came away with.

There are big slabs of stone blocking the old entrance to Mt. Washington from Blue Ridge. Maybe I have a propensity to read more in to things than what is really there. I'm sure the entrance off of blue Ridge was closed to prevent rowdy teenagers from raising hell and vandalizing Mt Washington. Still it struck me as almost taunting those less well off folks across the road. Those stones blocking the entrance insuring everyone stays put on their own side.

You can see the disparity in the lives and deaths of people who lived in the same city but two different worlds. The Longs and people like them built this city. And there are shrines and monuments befitting their stature in the annals of Kansas City history. But Charlie Parker made Kansas City more famous than all of the lumber barons and speculators combined, and he is relegated to a flat 5 by 6 foot slab of marble set in concrete and shared by his mother. It doesn't seem quite right to me that all of the millions this city spent on the revitalization of the jazz district, they didn't have the foresight or the respect to see that Charlie Parker's final resting place was given a monument that at least equaled that of the rich men just across the road. Charlie died a drug addict at the age of 35. He lived a hard life, made even harder at his own hand, no doubt the rich men across the way lived longer and softer lives for the most part.

There really is a happy ending to this story. Charlie Parker in death holds something that he never fully grasped in his short and tragic life. Parker's simple grave, not much bigger than one of the steps leading up to a giant mausoleum that holds some rich mans remains, still moves people. His marker is evidence that he is worshipped over 50 years after his death. There were several coins strung about the marble slab, and a small plastic sax, a couple of inches long has been laid as an offering. The ground around his grave is packed hard and bare, from countless visits from people who never knew him. In contrast the rich mans mausoleum has 2 feet of leaves covering the steps, nobody has visited in quite some time. I think that is a fitting tribute that the Bird would be proud of.