The South, of course. Those small two-lane roads, those brilliant green fields, those small black men sitting on a street corner in a small town in the winter sun. The music and the food, the kindness of everyone I met, laughter from behind a hot deli case in a gas station, the sound of blinding rain on the roof of my car as I licked fried chicken grease off my fingers. That smell of electric fire in the air from a lightning storm. Tiny family cemeteries right up close to the side of a farmhouse. Blooming dogwood trees in a field of clover so yellow it almost hurt my eyes. Billboard after billboard advertising lawyers who held the key to one's fortune, just call us now! U-turns in the middle of a highway to correct faulty directional conceptions. (Do I want East or West? Eventually I figured it out.) Monuments on the Natchez Trace Pathway dedicated to battles fought and won and lost. Dozens of small churches in towns that almost seemed deserted but for those small churches. Fine and talkative people at small restaurant bars, yearning to tell a stranger about the vagaries of their lonesome lives. The surprisingly friendly banter at every check-out line, whether in a grocery store, a Walgreens or while waiting to use a public restroom. The delight in a good cup of coffee at the counter of a local diner. Car snacks. Hotel snacks. Road music. Spirits of dead Civil War soldiers trying to get my attention, and succeeding in doing so. Tears for the hundreds of years of injustice, to which no end is in sight. Honky-tonk music, blues music, jazz and country songs sung in every town, every night. So much more.......
I can't get it out of my mind.
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