strange memorial experience

[Matt McKeon]

I stayed at a motel in Maine yesterday, on family business. It had a stump with a face carved in it on the front lawn. The owner of the 19th century house had planted a willow tree in 1865 to mourn the death of Abraham Lincoln. The tree had been struck by lightning in 1999, leaving a seven foot stump, and a local artist had carved a likeness, not of Lincoln, by the homeowner, a prominent businessman....who looked a little bit like Lincoln.