Seema's Walk

Music for the journey home provided by the Inimitable Miss Barr. So it was me, Tori and the wide open road, black asphalt rushing up to meet the sky. Days like this, with the blue-gray clouds rolling in, the shimmer through of light, the dark green of fields and trees, are best for driving. I noticed C----- for the first time. It's one of those towns built around a gas station and a country general store; you blink and you miss it. Most people don't even realize the speed changes from 70 mph to 55 at that point; they are flying through, not stopping to see the green sign which signifies the town limits, proudly proclaiming a population of 288. A little further, there is a billboard -- white with black lettering -- that announces in addition to 288 inhabitants, C------ also has food, drink, gas, museum and shops.

C----- is like every other town between here and there. The shops are colonial or western in style, run-down, and most have a "closed" sign on the front door. The blinds in the windows are bent out of shape, broken on occasion, and the building sags from the burden of housing beaten up rocking chairs and scarred dining room tables; occasionally, in the middle of the junk, you'll find a treasure, a poster from the 1940s or a genuine Louis Quinze chair. In towns like this, 'antique' simply means 'old.' As you go further down the road, you see the gas pumps resemble aliens; there's no such thing as pay-at-the-pump. There are different nozzles for different grades and the parking lot is kicked up with pot-holes and weeds. All 288 residents are in perpetual hiding.

There is a post office, with a broken down front porch. A faded American flag hangs limply. There is a Mexican restaurant. In five years of driving this highway, I've never seen anyone pull into the parking lot. There is a taxidermist too. A broken down truck adorns the front yard of a one-storey white clapboard house. The next door neighbor has a collection of tractors and that house is in need of serious paint; once it was an orange, now it's a pink. A little further away, the broken down remains of the Jezebel Saloon. The train tracks are a permanent home to Union Pacific boxcars.

There is a sign thanking you for visiting C------ and asks you to come again.