Monthly Archives: October 2013
I can’t add a thing
Words – I just don’t have any.*
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 10.6.2013
* I know, right? No one saw this coming.
Somewhere, apparently, there are watermelons
Somewhere, off to the right, it looks as though yellow meat watermelons are for sale.
I’m going to be honest: after I saw this sign, I made two u-turns to get back to this corner. I drove up one street and down another one and never did see any watermelons. I saw concrete pipe sections, and a grain elevator, and some metal stuff, but no watermelon. Which is sort of a shame: yellow watermelon’s my favorite.
Now that I think about it, maybe I assumed too much. That sign doesn’t actually say the melons are for sale. It just announces their presence somewhere, just letting us know that over there, to the right, someone’s got a melon or two in the refrigerator. Good to know.
But I’m glad I don’t have to post a sign announcing the contents of my refrigerator. Because it would have to say “Scary-looking leftovers”.
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 10.6.2013
The bypass did
The highway used to go through town. But now there’s a bypass and all the traffic heading south toward Lamesa or San Angelo or north to Lubbock just goes right by, at 75 miles per hour. At the very north end of town, and almost literally in the shadow of the first bypass overpass, an abandoned restaurant has spent the past couple of decades trying to fade away.
It hasn’t. Yet. But I feel like it will eventually be successful in that endeavor.
Tahoka, Texas
photographed 10.6.2013
Driving through
I was bored the other Sunday afternoon, sort of not feeling the photography to the extent that I like (and need, honestly, to keep up with a daily blog). So I did what any reasonable in-a-funk photographer would do. I drove down to Tahoka; I had high hopes. After all, Tahoka is the home of the famed prairie aster known as the Tahoka daisy. And I took this photograph there. And, it’s part of my family’s inside joke – when my Uncle Dan was leaving Lubbock to head south to his ranch, about a five hour drive away, he’d phone up and let us know that he was leaving and, he always said, he’d “drive through to Tahoka” the first day of the trip. (Tahoka’s thirty minutes from here.) I can’t even think about going there without remembering Uncle Dan.
So, anyway, I drove through to Tahoka. It was one of the first cool days of fall, and the sky was perfectly blue. And you know what a perfectly blue sky becomes when the photograph is black and white….
Tahoka, Texas
photographed 10.6.2013
Through for the year
Maybe there’s a slight chance some of my observant readers have noticed that I can be a bit of a contrarian. But if you haven’t noticed, here’s a little bit of proof. All summer, the sunflower fields south of town glowed with yellow light reflected from the blossoms. It was lovely.
But it wasn’t until the flowers were dead that I felt like taking their picture.
And, then I was reminded of a song by the band Thriftstore Cowboys:
if i only knew we were through for the year
i would’ve tried to be perfectly clear
we’ve stumbled before but you’re now on your own
i guess that makes two of us standing alone
-“Through for the year” from Great American Desert
Lubbock County, Texas
photographed 10.6.2013
One Day | One Image 