May 13 – HIGH POINT – What’s the most unusual place you ever saw when you were a teenager?
The cinema? Under the stands? In the backseat of a ’57 Chevy?
Well, no offense, but Paul Davis may have already bagged the Worst Place to Make Love award, and it happened nearly a century ago, when the amorous High Point teen took his young girlfriend to, ahem, the graveyard – in the middle of the night, no less.
Hey, nothing exudes romance like a few hundred tombstones in a dark, eerie cemetery, right?
The year was 1928. In the early morning hours of July 16 — 2 a.m. to be exact — High Point Police Officer JR Davis was making his nightly rounds when he saw a car parked at Oakwood Memorial Cemetery. This meant one of two things: either the ghosts had learned how to drive, or someone was trespassing on the town’s property.
The police officer investigated and found two teenagers — Paul Davis and his girlfriend, Nellie Beasley of Richmond, Virginia — sitting on the floor, hugging each other as they reclined against one of the many tombstones in the cemetery.
The High Point Enterprise reported that the two teens “spoon” – an old-fashioned term, similar to necks, meaning to kiss and hug passionately.
“Spooning between memorials in a cemetery proved costly for a young man and woman caught early this morning at Oakwood Memorial,” wrote The Enterprise.
Oh, and alcohol was involved.
According to the newspaper account, the girl was accused of being drunk and disorderly; she was fined $20 and costs. The boy was charged with drunkenness and disorderly conduct and violating Prohibition Act, as he was found to be in possession of whisky; he was fined $45 and costs.
Both teens were also charged with trespassing on city property, but those charges were generously dropped.
“Judge (Lewis) Teague and Archie Myatt, the state’s attorney, both felt the fines already imposed were punishment enough,” The Enterprise reported.
Not to mention the sheer humiliation of being arrested for making out in a graveyard, and then getting the whole sordid story in the paper.
And then, presumably, the two teenagers had to go and tell their parents what had happened. That was probably a lot scarier than hanging around in a graveyard.
jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579
