gourds

 

My exterior fall decorating consisted of placing gourds by the front door.  When I purchased the gourds at my friend's garage sale in Doughtery, she advised me to wash them in bleach to remove the mold.  I consider the mold part of the autumn motif.  It's not like I'll be crafty and make birdhouses or jugs out of them.

fall on the guadalupe

 

The nip in the air this morning signals the approach of autumn -- and brings memories of past journeys to places with fall foliage.

 

Guadalupe River

New Braunfels, Texas

11.25.2011

closed

 

The general store in Cone was built in 1903 and housed the post office.  Cone in its peak had 150 residents, a school, churches and businesses.  The day I visited Cone, the antique store -- in what was once the general store-- was closed according to the sign.  The sign is fairly descriptive of the whole place.

 

Cone, Crosby County, Texas

9.21.2013

long wait at the shuttle stop for the hotel bus

 

45 minutes after a long day at work seemed a long time to wait for the hotel bus to pick us up.  So I spent the time playing with exposures on the point-and-shoot camera.

 

Raleigh-Durham International Airport

North Carolina

carolina morn

 

Sanford is touted to be the geographic center of North Carolina.  Our teaching venue is the Extension Education Center amidst cotton fields and oak-dotted pastures.

 

Sanford, North Carolina

open education

 

Today only Crosbyton, Ralls and Lorenzo have schools in Crosby County.  The situation was different in the earlier part of the20th century.  Small towns like Emma, Cone and Estacado once  populated the high plains and most built a school house.  The school in Doughtery was built in 1929 but today only partial brick walls still stand.  What looked like a prosperous future in the 1920s faded in the 1930s with the depression, dust bowl and declining cotton production.  The Producers grain elevator towers on the horizon but is also devoid of life and business.  Rural towns are not completely dead but in dire need of life support.

 

Doughtery, Crosby County, Texas

9.21.2013



ghost gin

The Farmer community was named after W.W. Farmer, a pioneer cotton farmer.  The growth of a town could probably be marked by the construction of a school,, a general store, a church, a cotton gin and then a post office-- maybe in that order.    The decline is also marked by the closing of these structures and it seems the church may be the last to go.  Farmer built its first one-room school in 1893, the general store in 1925 and the cotton gin was erected in 1929.  Today little remains of the community.  I counted two houses and the defunct gin with a parked GMC truck.  The latest construction in Farmer was the erection of a historical marker in 1970 dedicated to former First Lady of Texas Ima Mae Smith, wife of Preston Smith.  Farmer was her childhood home and she returned to teach there after receiving her teaching certificate from Texas Tech.

Farmer, Crosby County, Texas
FM 193
9.21.2013

messages in a mason jar

 

Many think my interest in visiting cemeteries is morbid but I find each graveyard offers intriguing glimpses into the past.  I am not alone in this avocation. Bob Bowman  confesses to being a  graveyard junkie, and like him, I prefer the older sites with unusual tombstones.  You read the dates and wonder about the lives lived; you see a lone marker and wonder where the rest of the family is buried; you note the personal remembrances left by mourners.  This man died young at 24 and was buried in the family plot far from his Texas A&M alma mater and career in College Station.  He is not forgotten.  Through the glass jar one can barely read handwritten letters wrapped in a wedding program.

 

Cone Cemetery 

FM 193

Crosby County, Texas

9.21.2013



doughtery main street

 

 At about 5 miles, you know you're getting close to Doughtery because its landmark black water tower appears.  The town appeared in 1928 and might have prospered except, when constructed, Highway 70 bypassed it by 3 miles.  The school closed but the post office is still open ad the Co-op still sells gas.  I took the scenic route via Idalou, Estacado, Farmer, Cone and Lakeview.

Doughtery, Floyd County, Texas
Population:  109

madonna

 

As the deadline nears for entries to the 13th annual High and Dry exhibit, I browsed through the rejects from previous years.  Although fortunate enough to have images exhibited 10 of the 13 years, for every image selected there might be 4 rejected.  Each judge brings a different perspective to what reflects the people and land of semiarid regions.  Click here to see the 2011 exhibit.

 

Somewhere in El Paso, Texas

2006

dexter

benny

 

Benny is one of the breakfast regulars at the Ranch House and was gracious enough to pose for me.

 

Ranch House Restaurant

Lubbock, Texas

3.21.2013

pop's chair

Calendars and the Passing of Time

I have admired my friend Melinda Green Harvey’s wit and writing since we first met in Toastmasters 20 years ago.  We share an avid interest in photography and often laugh at “channeling” each other when we shoot a similar subject or location.  Our other “parallel points” include the loss of a mother and coping with an eighty-plus year old father.  Recently Melinda has been dealing with her dad in an assisted living center and the chore of closing a childhood home.  She is sharing these thoughts in a photoessay entitled “to be sold to strangers.”  A recent entry  featured calendars and this post prompted another of our “connections.”  Melinda described the home occupied since 1964 as a time capsule.  Pop’s only lived in this house for 30 years and, instead of  museum quality, it is frozen in time since 1999.  Rather rattling around in the large house alone, Daddy has made his living quarters in the master bedroom—moving in his recliner, the television and a side-table for the remote, medicines, mail and magnifying glass.  Mother would have been appalled, but when Pop, for Christmas, received a photo calendar of great-grandson namesake William, he thumbtacked it right there on the wall within easy viewing range.  The calendar in the utility room is for birthdays and doctor appointments; the calendar in the bathroom, at year’s end, will join its previous years counterparts on the dusty shelf.  This decade or so of calendars chronicle daily handwritten entries of farm history – dates for planting, amount of rainfall, starting the pivot, harvest yields – an annual Fortenberry Farmer’s Almanac.

lazy living

 

By September, the swim beach at the lake is deserted--most of the tourists are back to usual routines.  Had it not been 97 degrees I might have lolled in the chair and watched the waves.  As it was, I only ventured from the air-conditioned car to take a few pictures.

 

Lake Ouachita, Arkansas

9.10.2013 .

gradys -- going, going, gone

 

 

When the Majestic Hotel was bustling, Gradys Grill & Bar was the place to be.  Now the arrow points to a deteriorating building with false promises of renovations.  The built-in booths are still in place but the only patrons now are pigeons and mice. The Velda Rose, a newer hotel built in 1964, also stands vacant  It is a prime destination for the ghosts tour.   One enterprising photographer spent his time in Hot Springs shooting the signs -- wish I had thought to capture more of them myself.

 

Gradys Grill & Bar

101 Park Avenue

Hot Springs, Arkansas

9.11.2013

majestic no more

 

 

The Majestic Bath House and Resort Spa is one the faded grand dames of Hot Springs.  Its history from construction in the 1800s to closure in 2006 covers the spas, baseball celebrities, gangsters and gambling.  Photographers who like old and abandoned buildings will be envious of Walter Arnold who had legal access and a key to the door to photograph the hotel and its demise. (We even had the same thought of shooting the facade through the awning struts.)

 

Majestic Hotel

101 Central Avenue

Hot Springs, Arkansas

9.11.2013

101 Central Avenue

line-up

 

My heart beat a little faster when I spotted these lawn chairs lined up against the chartreuse wall -- even with the wooden barstool impostor hiding behind the telephone pole.

 

No Name Drive-in

East Grand Avenue

Hot Springs, Arkansas

9.11.2013

false advertising

 

 

This souvenir shop did not actually carry cameras and film -- I checked.  The digital age has put a crimp in that inventory.  They did have t-shirts and caps galore, would imprint your penny with "Hot Springs" and have the Wizard tell your fortune.

 

Souvenir Shop

334 Central Avenue

Hot Springs, Arkansas 

famous BBQ

 

 

McClard's was known for great barbecue before Bill Clinton made it famous.  If you want a photo of the place, get up early before the cars congregate all around the block.  Opened in 1928, the barbecue sauce is based on a secret recipe offered by a destitute guest in exchange for the rates at the motor court.  The cafe soon surpassed the motel.

 

McClard's Bar-B-Q

505 Albert Pike

Hot Springs, Arkansas



towers 1

 

As I drove south on Park Avenue I wondered if the Tower Motel took its name from the spire of the Park Place Baptist Church down the street.  On the return trip driving north on Park Avenue, I discovered the answer:

 

towers 2

 

The Tower Motel must be named for the turret of the Queen Anne house next door.  It looks like the estate grounds were sold off for the motel.  For a vintage motel, it didn't look too bad.  The "God Bless America" is supported by the Statue of Liberty on the front porch.  The Short-Dodson house was built in 1902 -- the heyday of Hot Springs.  Just blocks down the street is the childhood home of Bill Clinton.

 

Tower Motel

755 Park Avenue

Hot Springs, Arkansas