Blog Archives
168 empty chairs
Calm and peace and innocence were shattered at 9:02 am on April 19, 1995. It was a Wednesday. Employees, and children who attended the on-site daycare center, inside the Alfred Murrah Federal Building were surely busy doing their Wednesday things, right up until the moment an explosive-filled truck exploded just outside the building.
One hundred sixty eight people were killed; 19 of them were children at the daycare center.
The Oklahoma City National Memorial is on the site of the attack, and the Field of Chairs commemorates those lost that day. The chair here, in the foreground, represents Carol Louise Bowers; she was 55 years old and was on operations supervisor at the Social Security Administration. Accounts state that she would always answer the phone with “a happy voice” and her relative recounted that she was the “kind of person who …spread joy everywhere she went.”
(I would encourage you to go to the Field of Empty Chairs page to learn more about Carol and to see the layout of the chairs in this thoughtful and well-designed memorial.)
Oklahoma City National Memorial
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
photographed 11.25.2021
Slats
All of you know (because I mention it ALL THE DAMN TIME) that I like to look inside abandoned buildings.
This place was a service station at a crossroads miles and miles away from any kind of town. And the towns it’s closest to are little (the big one is 2,215 people), so it’s a real mystery why the place wasn’t able to stay in business. But anyway, check out the way that door is sagging down, one slat at at at time – that’s pretty nice, isn’t it?
Hall County, Texas
photographed 11.21.2021
Another roadside tragedy
A young man – a cowboy, if the lariat looped on the bottom of this cross is a clue – died along the highway, just south of town, where the road crests a slight rise and then curves to the left.
From the back, it looks like someone left a heart on the cross, but from the front, you can tell it’s a pair of angel wings. I liked that ambiguity.
near Clarendon, Texas
photographed 11.21.2021
Boston Terriers (in Texas)
Yes, I am fully aware that it would take only a handful of online minutes to learn why, exactly, the small town of Floydada, Texas, is home to the Boston Terrier Museum. And usually, that’s the sort of information I’d happily post right here.
But I think I don’t want to know. I think I want to imagine the sort of little granny (whom I totally believe had an underbite) started the place and has cared for it lovingly all these years. I think her name is Pearl, maybe, or Opal, or Mabel. And she generally wears white dresses with a black cardigan sweater draped over her shoulders.
The museum is currently open only by appointment, but the more I think about it, the more I think making an appointment and going back up there would be worth the trip: just thinking about their gift shop makes me feel a little lightheaded.
Floydada, Texas
photographed 11.21.2021
as it begins to fade away
I spotted this old mobile home from the road, but didn’t even request a u-turn. I know that seems unlike my usual methodology but I had my reason(s). I was heading for a location just up the road and I knew I’d be back by this old place.
Normally, I would have poked my camera through that broken jalousie window to photograph the inside but I was getting a pretty creepy vibe. And creepy vibes are definitely a thing I don’t ignore; no reason to find out the hard way that this was a Murder Trailer.
Deaf Smith County, Texas
photographed 11.12.2021
One Day | One Image 