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The usual view
This is my geography: a big sky and a long horizon and an absence of trees. It feels right to me. Hills and/or trees make me feel closed in, and that makes me nervous.
One summer night, in Durango, Colorado, we were staying in a cabin near a lake. A huge storm came up, with lots of wind and thunder and lightning. Generally that kind of weather is exciting, almost invigorating. But this particular night, I couldn’t relax. It wasn’t that the storm scared me so much as it left me feeling unsettled. Later, I realized that what bothered me about it was that with all those trees and mountains in the way, I didn’t know where the storm was. And that was what was making me feel so edgy.
That was when I started to understand that I am my geography.
And this? My usual view? I’d find it hard to give it up.
Pep, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
Not built to last
The town’s original name was Ledwig, but the post office rejected that name. So it somehow became Pep.
There’s almost nothing left.
But once upon a time, there was a roadside business in Pep. In current lingo, its business model was not sustainable. Neither was that travel trailer….
Pep, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
A smattering of light
I didn’t even know there was a town called Maple, but there it was. Well, sort of. The Maple Co-op Gin appears to be still operational, and there are a couple of houses that are inhabited. But the rest of the place is left to the elements.
The town is not named after a popular locally-sourced syrup: this is cotton country, after all. Rather, it got its name from Mr. (I’m guessing on that part, actually) Maple Wilson, an early settler. It was founded in the early 1920s and the population peaked in the 1940s at approximately 600; at its peak the town had six businesses. The 2010 census listed the population at 56.
This is one of the six businesses Maple had at its peak; this one had two entrances and you can still read GROCERIES painted beside one door and DRUG COUNTER by the other one. I like the way the bits of light, from the holes in the roof, let the light play against the wall.
Maple, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
Bonus: sign placement fail
I just couldn’t resist….
I took a different route to work the other day and saw this; today I thought about it again, and drove over to get the photo.
82nd Street
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 2.23.2014
PS – Pizza for dinner? No. I don’t think so.
Draperies + gravity
In my various wanderings, peering into abandoned buildings (or even going inside, briefly), I am always amazed by the kinds of things that get left behind when the school closes down, the business can’t make it, the homeowners leave.
This school has been abandoned since 1975, and the drapes are still there.
But, like everything else, those left-behind curtains are giving in to gravity.
You know who will win.
Bula School (abandoned)
Bailey County, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
