What Happened to Paradise?

The romance with cars and the Open Road was well documented.  Tin Can Tourism, visitors staying in campgrounds for travel trailers, was huge here in my own home state as early as the 1920s.

My own family hit the road in the '50s for months at a time.

And, of course, immediately after college, I too had to scratch my itchy feet.

I probably shouldn't use that one.  Taken on a Greyhound bus on my way home after three months hitching around the country, I was in need of grooming.  Oy!

All by way of saying, I am awash in old images of the road and regret that I cannot go back and take more.  We are left with what we have.

In order, Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, and again, Robert Frank.  People were in love with convertibles.  Open skies, wind, and the sound of car tires swishing across asphalt and concrete.  

I drove a VW bus and then an open Jeep, and I got addicted to seeing the world from a car.

Since going about to test drive new cars, I've realized that manufacturers have halved the size of car windows.  I Googled it, and it is true.  Car companies say that it makes the car more aerodynamic and safer in collisions, but consumers online are singing a very different tune.  

"Remember when you could see the world from a car window?"

So, in my "End of the Road" series, the cars will look very anime, nothing like these photos of old convertible topped autos.  People will be cut out of the pictures, by and large.  

There are so many things I will not see.  

But, as Ezra Pound said, "Make it new."

O.K., then.  "The End of the Road" just might be a little more apocalyptic.  

I took the bandage off my stitch-free leg yesterday expecting. . . I don't know what I was expecting.  Something bad.  But it was fine.  I could see the holes where the threads came out, but overall, the thing was already beginning to look fairly normal.  Now I wait out the next week to see if I am free to return to normal activities.  I'm looking forward to taking a trip to the beach.  

It is hot here in my own home state.  The weather turned on us after the Saharan dust passed, and now it is that brutal Faulkner weather where people get lynched or thrown down a well.  Lassitude and violence are the only options in this sticky air.  Blue skies mean danger now.  We need cloud cover to give some respite.  The brutal sun seems early this year.  It can simply knock you down.  The a.c. never quits running in my old wooden house, and the humidity is difficult to control.  Were I free, I would head north or west, but such is not in the cards right now.  Still. . . the project needs a road.  

Today I take Tennessee to the photo store to buy a new camera.  I've recommended one the little hipster Fuji X cameras because of the film simulations.  He wants me to teach him how to make pictures, but I know he is not going to take the time to learn how to do complex postproductions stuff, so he can get a pretty groovy look straight out of one of those little Fujifilm things.  Hell, I'll probably start envying the photos he takes.  

After that, it is going to be too hot to move, and I will be where I am most hot afternoons.  Belly up.  

So I'd better get going to make the most of my day.  Hell, who knows. . . I might even take a picture.