May 24, 2009

One Time In Georgia

Recently a friend sent me a Facebook challenge to count the number of states I have visited, and it was fun to come up with a number. (I wish it was higher, I think it was 18). From this process I decided I don't solely count airports or road trip gas stations as having been somewhere, but then the following exception came to mind:

   A few years ago I was driving cross-country with my sister Jenna and we had to stop routinely for gas in a rural area of Georgia, (a state I have never visited). The road signs were wrong this time; there was no gas station as it claimed on the freeway because hard times had fallen on this area, and the only gas station was closed. We were forced to drive around the local roads in both directions for about 30 minutes causing me to see things I feel I may never see again.

   There was a small ghost town of storefronts all closed but not boarded up, and an old country one-story house on the corner that Boo Radley MUST have lived in. The vines in the yard were growing wildly and aggressively around the house and into the partly opened windows, like the house itself would be devoured by nature within another year. We passed an African-American couple working the corn rows in the front yard of their home, white t-shirt rags on their heads and extremely dark glistening skin against white tank top shirts. (We have corn fields, yard gardens, and people of every type and race in California, but there is nothing like that in any part of the whole Pacific Coast, I assure you).
 
    We found a little gas market (without the gas) and went in for a Snapple and maybe a bite. There was a large white lady with a missing tooth or two, dirty apron, flipping burgers, with a distant look in her eye like she wasn't expecting company. A couple of ne'er-do-wells were smoking cigarettes indoors and shooting the bull. I peered back into the kitchen and saw it was large, dirty, empty and scary back there. We skipped the burgers and got back on the freeway for the next gas stop, and within 30 minutes we were back in mini-market land again.
 
  It was the implied moments of the past that made the biggest impression. I would love to see that again. People write whole novels after 3 days in a place like that...

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