Blog Archives
Lambs, and a song
Thanks to a very detailed county map at our hotel in Eureka, California, we wandered to Ferndale one day. Among other lovely things we saw in Ferndale was a particularly lovely cemetery. The flowers seem on the verge of taking over this child’s grave, with its request to feed the lambs.
And, now, because I haven’t posted a link to an only-marginally-related-to-the-topic-at-hand song in a while, here’s a Jenny Scheinman song that mentions Ferndale.
Ferndale, California
photographed 7.30.2012
’bout Time Liquor Store (closed)
Actual conversation:
Me: I don’t see ANYTHING I want to shoot. And, it’s cold.
Me (one millionth of a second later): Look at THAT!
Because how can you possibly pass up the chance to get a shot of the ’bout Time Liquor Store, which was apparently lying to us, since it wasn’t even open!?
Claude, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
PS: I wasn’t really talking to myself. My spouse was with me, sitting in the passenger seat, rolling his eyes at the complete predictability of it all.
Body Shop Diamonds
I found this nice little place on our short post-Christmas trip. I am always amused by places like this that have curtains in the windows (here’s another example of incongruous curtains).
But what really captured my attention were those nice glazed tile diamonds on the wall. You just know a body shop with diamonds is a good place to take your banged-up car. Except maybe not this place, as it doesn’t appear to be in business any more.
Childress, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
Quanah’s Truck
Things aren’t looking so good in the town named for Quanah Parker, the last of the Comanche chiefs.
Quanah, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
PS – Quanah Parker’s life is very interesting; his mother was a white woman who’d been captured at age 9 and who lived for 24 years with the Comanche before she was recaptured by Americans soldiers. The book Empire of the Summer Moon tells the story.
And, my friend Andy Wilkinson writes of Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah’s mother, in the song “White Women’s Clothes.”
White Women’s Clothes
Andy Wilkinson: Charlie Goodnight (1994)In the moon you call December
On the river you call the Pease
It was cold and I remember
We had just packed up to leave
When a mounted line of soldiers
A sparkle in the sun
Rode down upon our warriors
And shot them one by oneAnd the ponies of our women
They were loaded down and slow
With our lodge poles and equipment
And the meat of our buffalo
So the cowards of your cavalry,
When all the fight was o’er,
Killed the women and their babies
‘Cept for me and Prairie FlowerThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
For the prison of his houses
And his white women’s clothesYou could see my hair was flaxen
You could see my eyes were blue
See my skin was white and ashen
Or you would have shot me too
But you could not see the baby that I cradled in my robes
Small red skinned Comanche
The color of my soulThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
For the prison of his houses
And his white women’s clothesDressed up for your amusement
In your used and second hands
You parade me through your settlements
And you call me Cynthia Anne
In these walls I’m suffocating
Where the wind never blows
While my heart is strangulating
In these white women’s clothesThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
For the prison of his houses
And his white women’s clothesThe white man’s liberation
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
Took me from my home
The Homestead
My 75-miles-per-hour glimpse of this place gave me the impression that it was an abandoned church.
I drove three or four more miles before there was a place to turn around, so I could go back and check it out.
It was a farmhouse, with a garage/shop around back – some broken dreams. To be honest, I’m not quite sure why I thought it was a church. But either way, it was worth the few additional miles that day.
County Road 1
near Ashtola, Texas
photographed 12.26.2014
