A few weeks ago I received an email from an American living in South Korea (Hi, Chris!).  He had seen a post I did about going to the gravesite of Jimi Hendrix.  He said that his students are big into Jimi Hendrix stuff and would think he was a hero if he could get a stone rubbing of Hendrix’s headstone.  (Koreans and Hendrix: who knew?).

Anyway… we emailed back and forth a bit and I mentioned that Bruce and Brandon Lee were buried in Seattle and that I hadn’t been there yet.  One thing led to another and I told him that I would try to do a stone rubbing of all three grave markers.  Because ya know… if his Korean students think Hendrix is cool they are going to be ga ga over Bruce and Brandon Lee!

But first I had to let it dry out around here.  This is, afterall, the rainy, drippy, soaking wet Pacific Northwest.

Today seemed like the perfect day so first we headed to Renton to say hello to Jimi.  Instead of the usual pennies that I usually see at gravesites, folks tend to leave him guitar picks.  This I understand.  I can see the connection. 

Here’s another photo of his stone.

I had never done a stone rubbing before.  I started this one but it wasn’t coming out too well.  Dana took over and got the job done right.  I just wasn’t pressing hard enough.

From Renton we headed up to Lake View Cemetery.  This is one of the oldest (official) cemeteries in Seattle and it is on a great piece of real estate.  Beautiful views of the city on one side (and the Olympics on a good day) and an amazing view of Lake Washington and the Cascade mountains on the other. 

It didn’t take long at all to find Bruce and Brandon Lee.  You just headed toward the crowd of people. 

This experience was a bit odd for me.  I have been to tons of gravesites but I have never seen throngs of people and I have never seen folks stand before a grave marker like they are in the middle of some form of reverent worship.  In addition, we were the only english speaking individuals there.  While there were a few Asians (which I expected because they really look up to the Lee family) they were not the majority.  The majority was Mexican, then Russian, then Asian, then us. I think the Lee’s may be even more popular internationally than they are here based on the different nationalities that were represented.

Here’s some photos….

Lake Washington and the Cascades

Bruce and Brandon Lee (the Lee’s face Lake Washington and the Cascades)

Bench in front of the Lee’s gravesite.

Now y’all know how I’m always wondering why folks leave the pennies at the gravesites?  Well, there were dollar bills here (fives, tens, ones, etc scattered about), dimes, quarters, tons of money on Bruce Lee’s stone.  (Oddly enough…. very little money of Brandon Lee’s site.  ????) Previously folks have told me that leaving the pennies at a gravesite is a way of saying "I was here".  But the amount of money that was here seemed to mean something more than that, not sure.  (Maybe I’m reading too much into this.) But there was a good amount of money there and it was obvious that some of it had been there for a while. It was weathered and sun bleached. 

Just one more question I have for the universe…. money on gravesites…. why?

Moving on…..

Here is Anna Grace in front of the Denny Party’s gravesite.  The Denny family were among the first settlers of the Seattle area and many landmarks, creeks, campgrounds, etc are named for them.  When we were at Franklin Falls yesterday that is the Denny Creek area because the Denny Party crossed through there via wagon a bazillion years ago… and I think they did that in the winter.  I can’t even imagine how difficult that must have been.

Anyway… back to the tombstone touristing…

It took a bit to get the rubbing of the Lee’s stones because we didn’t want to interrupt anyone and we didn’t want to prevent others from seeing them.  We finally just jumped in and got ’em done.  So now I have the three stone rubbings and I’ll get prints made of the photos we took and send them off to Chris in South Korea.  I hope his students get a kick out of ’em.