Pink Cadillac, Hindsight, outside the Pink Cadillac Diner, Natural Bridge, Virginia, October 2009, all photos © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Back in Pennsylvania. I always think I’m going to post more than I do from the road. But at the end of the day, I find myself exhausted. Out as soon as the head hits the pillow. Perhaps it’s the introvert in me. I love traveling West to East, North to South, all the people I see only once a year. I wish there were a dozen of me. Maybe a baker’s dozen.
Yesterday I drove 13 hours back from Georgia with Mom. I spent this October day with my family in Pennsylvania. It’s almost 4am and I find myself wide awake, wanting to write. It’s the best I can do to post a haiku, a note, a few photographs from the Pink Cadillac Diner in Natural Bridge, Virginia. It’s a little off the beaten trail. Mom was finishing up her ice cream cone while I walked out to photograph the Caddy. A young woman strode proudly up behind me with her two daughters, camera in tow.
“My dad took a photo of me in front of this very spot,” she said, “and now I get to take a photo of you.” Snap. I watched her daughters gleaming next to the rusty chrome. “Would you like me to take a photo of all of you together?” I asked. “I’d love that,” she smiled, rushing over to hand me her pocket camera.
Lineage. Family legacies. The things we pass down.
The day was perfect for driving. The light illuminated by Fall. I hung my head out the window and snapped photos of a sunset front over Virginia. There is so much to tell. For the time being, will you settle for the highlights?
- visiting the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, Georgia with my mother
- walking with my dad through the Brick Pond Ecological Park in North Augusta, South Carolina
- dining on my uncle’s chili he’s been making since he was 12
- riding on the back of my brother’s Harley Softtail
- driving through Virginia with the mountains framed in gold
- visiting my paternal grandparents’ graves for the first time with my aunt
- photographing a historic Sand Oak at Westover Memorial Park Cemetery
- standing by the Savannah River on the down side of Clarks Hill Dam
- spending the day on the Georgia side of Clarks Hill Lake working on family history with Mom
- watching the Vikings/Steelers game with my family
- grits, sweet tea, barbecue hash, boiled peanuts
- seeing the faces of my brother and mom at the airport when I land
- talking to Liz on the new BlackBerry from Sconyer’s Bar-B-Que (she asked for hushpuppies)
- Twittering across the Mason-Dixon line (and the rest of the 1200 mile round trip to Georgia) with the same said BlackBerry
- photographing the October Blood Moon rising over Pennsylvania, setting over Georgia and South Carolina
- writing haiku in the air, Minnesota to Maryland and Pennsylvania
- watching my sister-in-law tap dance across her living room floor (and later my niece and brother’s fiancee danced across the same floor)
- The Beatles Rock Band with my niece, nephew, and brother in his living room
- attending a huge Halloween bash with my aunt at the Julian Smith Casino building where in the 1950’s my mother used to go to dances and work barbecues to raise money to build a local church
- laughing with my family, North and South
- stopping at the Pink Cadillac Diner in Virginia with Mom on the way home from Georgia
season to season
hindsight is 20/20
reflecting the past;
future remains uncertain,
jumps hoops through the looking glass
-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, October 25th, 2009
-related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), WRITING TOPIC — MEMORIES OF CARS, WRITING TOPIC– ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS, you can’t go back — 15 haiku, Cassie’s Porch — Then & Now, Excavating Memories
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