Another tragedy in Highland Park

Another tragedy in Highland Park

See The Guardian, the Crime Victims Memorial and other tucked away gems in Highland Park 1/17/18

As seen in Highland Park over two years, Highland Park is a place of natural beauty, historical memory, art and pageantry.  Alas, the park can also be a place of tragedy.

It has been less than a year since we learned of the murder of Charlotte Lahr in her store just across from the park on South Avenue.  Then we saw an effusive outpouring of support from family, friends and customers whose lives she touched.

Last Saturday we learned that at 1:22pm a skier discovered a body in the snow on the Highland Drive side of the park.

body

1/17/18 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

We know very little about Eric Markham except that foul play has been ruled out and it took five days to identify him.  An internet search found next to nothing about his background.  We may never know what brought Mr. Markham to the park on a bitterly cold night.

Police did not say exactly where the woman discovered his body.  There is a trail used by cross country skiers on the Highland Drive side near the Guardian statue.  Occasionally, usually in the summer, you can find traces of habitation by homeless people.

For those of us who walk or walk dogs or ski in the park — snow covered or lilac covered — we can imagine the shock and sadness of that woman who discovered Eric Markham.

Beauty is always tinged with sorrow.

UPDATE: A reader provided some new information:  “Body was near the Day Care Center playground between St. Johns and the flowering trees.”

IMG_6791

1/21/18

POSTCRIPT: Eric Markham’s death reminds us of the drowning of Bradley Rudgers in Lake Riley at Cobb’s Hill — another seeming invisible man.  The Cobb’s Hill tragedy of an “invisible man” ten years later

SEE

Highland Park over two years

Charlotte Lahr (1970 – 2017)

The Cobb’s Hill tragedy of an “invisible man” ten years later

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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