Route 460 runs through the Virginia Appalachians. In THE DAY when I was 50 or so years younger, the road was important, overused and abused, discussed and cussed by anyone who had to get on it to travel east or west or even cross the road – chickens had no chance. Not for a moment did a chicken of any sense think about crossing that road anymore than a smart person would think about swimming the English Channel during WW2, what with warships, submarines, fighters and bombers and all the irritated people on both coasts. Plus, what would they say when they emerged on the other side? INVASION???
The road's travelers did provide some extra income for the few businesses in our little town of 322+/- people. The population had its daily ups and downs depending on who was happy or mad at whom and if we had a guest in the jail or not.
This particular afternoon I was parked next to my friend Curtis on an empty wooden pop case, propped against the storefront. The elderly men (younger than me at my current age) had the two prominent metal chairs where they could pontificate about the sad state of local and international politics and the general ruination of culture due to communism and rock and roll music and a totally absurd thing called canned biscuits.
Reflect on that. The wall of communism has fallen and the Chinese are now more capitalistic than the Rockefellers and only thing still vexing society are canned biscuits. It is a sad day, Nanny.
The posture and the company and the nearness to the highway to anywhere does make a young man's mind expand. Just then, Bill Blankenship, the town's most respected citizen, veteran and postmaster, brought me the primary source of my broader global education. (This was the second most important bulk mail package I ever received.) It was the July edition of the National Geographic Magazine.
Whatever Curtis and I were thinking of or talking about was quickly shelved. The Ro'C Cola, half-finished, was set soundly on the concrete. The two remaining Nekot crackers were carefully rolled up and stored for future consumption and my hands were made as clean as possible to receive the fresh paper, images and words. Even in the air drifting from the power plant, the powerful and familiar smell of the ink had become a prelude to joy. Before reading a line, the photos were quickly scanned so that the senior members watching over us could not accidentally see some aboriginal breast before I got to see it for the first time by myself.
None of that was in this issue.
No, there was something even better than the aforementioned budding female pulchritude.
Worked out in brown ink, made to look older and with pictures of castles with cannon ports and powerful war machines was a story about the mind of Leonardo Da Vinci. Explored was his curiosity about EVERYTHING. His art, his science, his engineering and his fear of having his ideas stolen. His keeping his journals written his unique cryptology. If only he had gotten the decoder ring from my last box of Cracker Jacks.
It would not be long before I learned to read his Latin and Greek and write his writing. I would learn to make ink and build tools and, I drove away, down Route 460, rarely returning.
Each trip back is usually for a funeral. The people that have passed have taken with them so much of what is important about that place. That little town is mostly gone, the widened 460 took away that special vantage, but not the memory.
Each time I eat a Nekot, it is a bit of communion with that time. If I could just find that RC Cola. Tim
http://www.timjohnsonphoto.com/ tim@timjohnsonphoto.com
Sunday, May 31, 2009
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