Nevermore

After 60 years, a tradition comes to an end (maybe) but no one knows why and will likely never know who was behind it.

From The Baltimore Sun...

Dozens of fans of Edgar Allan Poe were left standing out in the cold Tuesday when a mysterious nocturnal visitor didn't keep his standing date to toast the author at his Baltimore burial plot. The so-called Poe Toaster's absence yesterday for the first time in more than 60 years has renewed the decades-long fascination with the visitor's identity.

Every Jan. 19 since 1949, someone had placed three red roses in a pattern along with a half-empty bottle of cognac on the grave of the author of such suspense classics as "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart."

No one knows who he - or she - or they - might be.

Why did the visits stop now? Was the milestone year of 2009, which marked the bicentennial of the poet's birth, always intended to be the final toast? "If it was going to end, 2009 would be the perfect year to end it," Jerome says.