PASSION PROJECTS

A left hand turn off the state highway and up onto an old bridge

made of creosote lumber. The rumble of your tires on the

loosened boards makes you believe this might be the time you

wind up down below, on the railroad tracks about sixty feet

beneath the bridge. These are the same tracks from the story of

the lonesome traveler, who walked with his face to the howling

wind and never heard the roar and whistle of the approaching

train at his back.

But the old bridge that smells of kerosene and tar holds you up

once again, and as you cross over you are greeted with another

smell that stews in the heat of summer, a potpourri of flowers

and decay. Of fruit trees, old dogs, sweat, grease and fried

foods. The smell of the very old south. Everywhere you look

now, you see three room shacks built atop cinder blocks.

Houses that seem to stand miraculously against time, but just

barely. People on worn leaning porches stare out at you with

vacant faces as you pass by.

Down the road to the right are the gates of the old mill. The

long-dead owner of the old mill built these shacks. He built the

general store, the post office and the church. He allowed the

parents and grandparents of these vacant faced people to pay

ten cents a week for room and board as long as they worked

their fingers to the bone sewing and stitching, packing and

stacking.

At night you lie awake and listen. Through the blades of the

whirring box fan in the open window comes the melody of

summer. The crickets and june bugs grind out there endless

song, with staccato accents of barking dogs. Ever so often you

hear the bass of rubber tires on the loosened creosote boards.

Eventually you drift off to a restless sleep and dream of the

vacant faces as they peer into the windows of the room where

you lie.