Wednesday, September 20, 2006

A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.

While we've already established that some folks in the South still like their mammy-themed restaurants (and Aunt Jemima, as astute reader KB points out), I hate to dwell on the negative. God knows I am nothing if not a ray of sunshine, correct? (Ahem.)

So let's move on, shall we? One of the things I like best about our southern citizens--in addition to their fine food offerings, linguistic innovations and general geniality--is their propensity to abandon their picturesque homes. A big chunk of William Christenberry's career has been devoted to examining such spaces, and I found one of my own right outside Aynor, South Carolina.

After driving down a dirt road with Scrawny Bits by my side (Scrawny Bits is generally amenable to photographic sidekickery, but this day was a little cranky and yelled "I don't like suffering!" when I started to sing in the car), I quickly came upon this place, tucked back in the trees a bit, and just waiting for investigation:





















And investigate I did. I am generally intrepid, but this place was spookier than average. Maybe it was the clock laying on the floor in the front hallway (photos of that came out a bit blobby), the abandoned (and empty) box of chocolates, or the spine-tingling way the floorboards creaked. I made it as far as the kitchen:

























before I got creeped out. I felt a little rude as well, as I had clearly interrupted someone's sweeping.

The rest of my explorations were thus confined to the outside:


















































where I had brief thoughts of somehow trying to transplant that spindly bush into the courtyard of my Manhattan apartment building.

Returning to the dirt road, my journeys then carried me into Aynor itself, which was hosting its annual "Harvest Hoe-Down." There was no hoe-down that I saw, and very little that indicated a harvest...but there were Ned Burgers:




















Ned's was kind of the high point of this day's trip though--until later that evening when Scrawny Bits (who had apparently recovered from the suffering she endured at the sound of my voice) decided that she wanted to go to a nearby amusement park.
























I remained quiet throughout her ride on the horse's ass, just so you know.

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