I’m not a big fan of blanket statements or name-calling. If you are one of the knuckleheads ransacking gravesides at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Lewiston, however, allow me some exceptions.

You are milfoil in the pond of life. Deodorant flakes on the armpit of the world.

To call you a weasel wrongfully insults any creature above rodents on the food chain.

Not that I think you read newspapers, unless you first shoplifted one. But let’s review some basics.

Stealing is wrong. Stealing items from a cemetery is wronger than wrong. And disrupting a veteran’s burial site around Memorial Day during wartime is like swiping the Salvation Army drum one week before Christmas.

Luckily, your victims are merciful.

Annette Gosselin of Lewiston believes eating, sleeping and breathing are punishment enough.

“I hope they have some really bad nightmares,” Gosselin said.

For 25 years, Gosselin engaged in a peaceful May ritual, embedding an American Legion marker into the freshly mowed grass at St. Peter’s.

Together with a small American flag, the 5-pound, 6-inch-wide hunk of brass paid tribute to Gosselin’s father, a World War I veteran.

Gosselin made an early May pilgrimage, then returned Saturday of the holiday weekend to pay further homage. The broad stripes and bright stars remained intact.

Metal memorial, missing.

“I was so mad, I could have spit fire,” she said.

Although Gosselin’s family can only speculate why a prankster coveted their sentimental property, her son suspects the thief was more savvy than a juvenile delinquent on a scavenger hunt.

“He tells me brass is very expensive, so whoever took it must have known what they were doing,” Gosselin said.

The perpetrators of graveyard shenanigans don’t target only high-end heirlooms. Two families from Auburn learned last month that not even floral arrangements are safe.

Before you decide that flower filching equates with double parking on the morality meter, it’s worth noting that Connie Lessard’s husband, Robert, lost his seven-year struggle with cancer on May 13.

Lessard, a retired nurse who attended to her man at home during the final weeks of their 46-year partnership (“Our generation, that’s what you do,” she said), placed a potted pink geranium on his unmarked grave.

Robert’s children and grandchildren, some from as far away as Florida, returned after the funeral for a Memorial Day weekend cemetery visit.

Geranium, gone.

“I said it would mark the spot for six or eight weeks until I can get a marker,” Lessard said. “He’s in a beautiful spot to the right of the chapel, next to a tree, near a pond. To go back and find nothing was awful.”

Ask yourself what’s worse: Having your begonias burglarized without a trace, or seeing portions of your purloined plant show up next to someone else’s headstone?

Ray Spencer has an answer. Flowers honoring his mother and grandparents wound up being, um, recycled.

“My uncle knew it was ours. He’s the one who bought it,” Spencer said. “This is what our society has come to. It’s just disrespect.”

Lessard and Gosselin know of other cemetery theft and vandalism. Gosselin stopped leaving flowers long ago.

“People take them. People are just cheap,” she said.

Cemetery officials are on alert. No victims bothered to call the police, believing the thefts would be impossible to prove.

For now, they find solace in freedom of speech.

“Nothing is sacred anymore. It’s disgusting,” said Gosselin.

“I think it’s deplorable,” Lessard said. “I just can’t fathom it. I won’t even tell you what my son said.”

Whatever his pronouncement, consider this a hearty amen.

Kalle Oakes is staff columnist. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].