(UPDATE – As of 4:00 p.m. Sunday, May 22, digging has commenced. Link to pictures courtesy of Stephen G)
The Ossining Historical Society announced Wednesday that the exhumation will take place in the next couple of days. The article about it is here. It appears a press conference to share their findings, followed by a funeral, will take place next Wednesday, May 25. The funeral part is still puzzling to me, due to the fact that in their court petition, it states “Petitioner has no knowledge of any religious preference of the Decedent“. Of course, they further state in seeking approval to take “anatomical gifts” to conduct the DNA testing that, “Petitioner has no knowledge that any such anatomical gift would be contrary to the religious or moral beliefs of the Decedent“. Despite evidence that he carried a prayerbook, wore a crucifix, and took no meat on Fridays, they have used the lack of evidence of religious beliefs as a rationale for performing the tests while they have access to his remains. But then “out of respect” there will be a funeral? The juxtaposition of these two events will never sit well with me. For what it’s worth, I do not plan to be there, or join in this misguided portion of the Leather Man’s journey.
Maybe the old earth which he communed with for all the years while he walked among us, and ever since, will have already returned him to the dust from which he came. Only then, would he finally be free to roam in the shadows and the wind, forever mysterious and unknown.
