Click on the above pictures to enlarge them.
In the pictures above you will see items left at William Faulkner's grave in Oxford, Mississippi. Besides the empty whiskey bottles and other things people have been leaving money in the form of coins on the grave marker. Why? I have heard two stories.One is for a needy student to get enough money to buy a drink. But the real reason I think is because of his famous quote when he got fired from the Postmasters job at the University of Mississippi in the 1920s. He said,"I reckon I'll be at the beck and call of folks with money all my life, but thank God I won't ever again have to be at the beck and call of every son of a bitch who's got two cents to buy a stamp."
A Russian literary lady visited Oxford once to see the sights of Faulkner country. She asked about that quote. She was told about SOB. She said, "SOB I know but what is this beck and call?"
If there are other reasons for people leaving change on the grave marker I can't think of what they might be.
See my past post on this blog for Faulkner in Paris 1925 in the Luxenbourg Gardens.
And more on William Faulkner.
