Sam Baynes Jr. grew up in a cemetery. Literally.

His father was a caretaker for the City of Selma, and the family lived in a house at the edge of New Live Oak Cemetery. The house is gone now, but the memories linger on.

“I was born into this job,” laughs Baynes, a stocky man with the first touches of gray showing in his beard. “My daddy worked out here and I started working under him. My first job was cutting grass. I was” – he passes a hand in the air at waist level – “about this high.”

In those days they still dug graves by hand. Four feet wide, 8 feet long, 4 feet deep. It took five or six men about 45 minutes to dig a grave in sandy soil, longer if the ground was hard or there were tree roots to negotiate.

Today it takes a good backhoe man just 15 minutes to do the same work.

Baynes has witnessed a lot of changes since he officially started working for the city back in 1973. He retired as cemetery superintendent in April. But he’s staying on part-time through December to give his successor, Willie Peeples, time to learn the ropes.

“This is a sensitive position,” explains Selma City Councilwoman Jean Martin, who led the search for Baynes’ replacement. “At the time when you have to go to see about a gravesite, it’s a difficult time. You need somebody who is compassionate and, for goodness sake, someone who knows what they’re doing. That’s not a time for bungling.”

Working with people who are grieving has become almost second nature to Baynes over the years. Still, every grief is unique and only the most callous can remain entirely unmoved in its presence.

“You have sympathy for the people who come here to bury a loved one,” he reflects. “That’s something all our people share. We try to show respect. But at the same time you have to go on. We see it every day. It’s an everyday routine for us.”

Some of the most heart-rending items Baynes and his crew encounter in their daily rounds are not the flowers seen in such abundance at most cemeteries, but the mementos meant to convey some small portion of the life that lies buried there. The small plastic deer placed atop the grave of the avid hunter. The favorite teddy bear left by the grieving mother and father.

Baynes and his crew of 25 workers care for five cemeteries: Live Oak, New Live Oak, Old Live Oak and Elmwood cemeteries, which are owned by the city, and Lincoln Cemetery, which lies on private property.

“Lincoln is privately owned, but it lies within the city limits,” Baynes explains. “We sort of took it under our wing because it was getting to be an eyesore.”

Baynes divides his men into two crews, a grave-digging crew and a grass-cutting crew. He estimates that the grave-digging crew handles an average of 10 to 12 burials a week, week in and week out.

“I’ve dug so many graves over the years I can’t imagine how many I’ve dug,” shrugs Baynes. “It makes you think. When you see all the young people today that’s killed because of fighting or accidents … it makes you think. It makes you want to live a better life.”

Living in the midst of so much death, surrounded by countless headstones proclaiming “Gone But Not Forgotten,” not unexpectedly lends itself to a little quiet reflection from time to time. Still, Baynes observes that he and his men are probably no more given to meditation than most.

“It’s sort of creepy at first,” he allows. “But you get used to it. When I was a kid growing up, the other kids all wanted to come to my house to play. They wanted to play in the graveyard.”

He laughs again.

Occasionally, people express a heartfelt thanks to Baynes and his crew for their unobtrusive, necessary work. Far more often, though, they labor in relative obscurity – seen and yet not really seen at all. They’ve learned it is best not to expect gratitude.

“Regrets?” asks Sam Baynes Jr., repeating the question. “No. I’ll miss my co-workers, but I have no regrets. It’s been a good life.”