1973

1973 is a year that surfaces in the narrative of Pet Sematary as a marker of the road's lethal history, specifically through the death of the Ryder children's pet raccoon. Jud Crandall recounts this event to Louis Creed on the evening of the Creed family's arrival in Ludlow, using it to illustrate the peril that Route 15 poses to local pets. The raccoon, described by Jud as a "sweet coon" that would waddle up to people and lick their faces, was run down by one of the large Orinco trucks that regularly travel the road. The animal had been spayed and declawed by a vet, a costly procedure that underscores the family's care for it. Jud recalls that Matty Ryder, one of the boys, cried so long and hard that his mother became frightened and considered taking him to a doctor. This anecdote serves as a direct warning to Louis, who has just moved his family—including his daughter Ellie's cat, Church—into a house bordering the same dangerous road. The year 1973 thus becomes a touchstone for the recurring, seemingly inevitable tragedy of pets killed by traffic in Ludlow, a pattern that Jud has observed over decades and that will soon claim Church himself. The grief of the Ryder boys, which Jud insists children never fully forget, foreshadows the profound loss that Ellie Creed will face. The mention of 1973 also situates the story's present—the Creed family's arrival in August of an unspecified year—within a continuum of loss, where the road's appetite for animals is a constant, and the emotional wounds it inflicts are passed from one generation of children to the next.