The Times they are a-strangin'.

I took a road trip yesterday with Kim and Amanda.  We drove down to the beach, an annual treat, and one of the few things I look forward to the whole year long. Sometimes, two of the few things I look forward to the whole year long, if I can manage to get away again.

I’d never taken a trip with Kim and Amanda, at the same time; I’ve certainly spent time with them separately, and had a wonderful time with each, but I wasn’t sure the casserole would take, so to speak, when all the ingredients were added.  We all have a certain amount of spice, and god, let me just stop with this…suffice it to say, it was an experiment.

And it was a success.  The trip was lovely, the weather was gorgeous, the ride entertaining. (Actually, at the moment, I’m still at the beach, sitting here debating on the absolute merit of a mimosa…I, at least, have to be honest about that). And as is the ritual, we drove straight to the beach house, hastily threw things into the rooms, and tore off our clothes: we wear our suits on the ride down underneath the most loosely fitting clothes we can legally wear in public. We worry about food and the like, afterwards.  What’s important is the beach.

Midway through the drive, however, we, naturally, had to stop for gas. Also I was gung-ho about purchasing a ridiculous pair of sunglasses. Our stopping point was Waynesboro, a sad and confusing little town in the eastern depths of Missississippi, right on the state line.  It’s a confusing town for several strange reasons. First, you enter the town, at least from the highway we were on, through a cornfield, scarecrows and all. It was very a la Jeepers Creepers, a movie that has scarred me and convinced me that of all the futuristic inventions possible that Hollywood and the Sci-Fi Channel have all but subliminally persuaded us are capable in our lifetimes, my vote is on memory erasing.

Upon entering the city, if we call it that, in the middle of corn, as you will, there sits a Western Sizzlin’, a restaurant so intent on ”steaks and a good country buffet” that it cannot afford a “g” at the end of the word “sizzling.”  This restaurant is by nothing, except, of course, corn, which I pretend was a smart, corporate business decision – a product placement of sorts.  Generic brand, (I mean, it’s just plain corn) but, as the argument goes, the quality is just as good. And if you have enough elbow grease, you can have cornmeal which down south means cornbread, which down south means manna.

Naturally, the next thing that comes into view is Wal-Mart, and in a twist of fate that must make the very ground of Bentonville, AR, quake with continued profit and pride, across the street – excuse me, the road – is the high school, the War Eagles, as they’re called.  That, in and of itself, is an interesting name for an athletic department, and I’m sure, warrants research.  I love the idea of research. The logic would suggest that there must also be a Peacetime Eagle, but having visited Yellowstone National Park, at the tender age of 13, I can assure you, all eagles are graceful and vicious. I saw one eating a field mouse just for kicks. I could tell; it was all over his beak.

Still…

A few “blocks” past this arrangement of retail and education, sat a unique display of fast food conjoined triplets – KFC was attached to Taco Bell which was attached to Long John Silver’s, all in the same building – and an array of gas stations with names like Hack’s Hot Biscuits and Bait. It was square in the middle of this “plaza” that the only thing that brought us any small amount of comfort stood, a Chevron.

A no-name, average, 1984-esque Chevron. (I mean both the year 1984 and the Orwellian idea that it was blandly branded, at least considering the names of the other gas stations).

Two things happened at the gas station, besides getting gas, that I filed under Strange.

The lesser thing was a snippet of a conversation I overheard while perusing the hanging-from-the-ceiling “stand” of faux-designer sunglasses.  An elderly woman was regaling to an elderly man, not her husband I could tell, about how she, in a quick pinch and fix, would mix mayonnaise and ketchup and sugar and make her own Thousand Island dressing.

I was both engaged, instantly, and disgusted and also: Where was this Thousand Island, anyway?  Was the original dressing some sort of community effort among all 1,000 of these nameless islands; was it in an attempt to create better relations among them because, perhaps, up until this point of culinary discovery, they were warring tribes hellbent on island domination?

And would they be offended, to know that despite their secret history of war and peace and civilization, they had been reduced, in the 21st century, to a simple recipe of ketchup, mayonnaise, and sugar, according to an elderly woman in Waynesboro, Mississippi? 

I put my sunglasses back on the upside-down-tree of sunshade options, and decided to get a Gatorade.  At this point, Kim was about to come in the gas station to search for a bathroom (it’s a trait we all three share – this need to know restrooms), when she motioned for me, through the thick glass wall, to come outside and she meant right then.

I obliged, curiously.

I stepped through the doors, and there she stood pointing. Amanda stared out from the backseat, sleepy but interested. 

And there, taped up onto the door, on 8.5″ by 11″ white typing paper, was the following Notice:

If you are wearing a hoodie or a mask, of any type, please remove it before entering the store. Thank you.

What immediately interested me is that such a sign has found a need to be displayed, at all, but those are just the times we live in, I suppose, post-911…but what affected me about this assumed admonishment is that it’s taped up on a window at a gas station in Waynesboro, in a town that can’t possibly hold more than 2,000, if that, in Mississippi.  Forgive the constant repeat, but if such a sign is necessary here then I am worried for the rest of the country. The sun was shining, the sky clear, but I shivered.

You don’t put a sign like that up unless there’s a reason.

And then, I thought of that sweet, elderly woman at the counter, eagerly offering recipes.  What if she’d been here that day, the day that the reason for this sign occurred. It broke my heart to think she might have been a Victim, instead of a faded Victorian. (We’ll have to talk about the remaining styles of Victorianism in this state, in another blog, but it involves several great aunts and  GamVa, my grandmother Virginia, who like the state itself, remains dedicated to its cultural heritage and at times, unnecessarily, Latinate in speech and monologue).

I told Kim to take a picture of it, both for posterity and also, so we could show it to Amanda, and she tried, but it wouldn’t take. The picture didn’t come out.

That was odd, until I decided to focus on that part, instead; maybe it was a sign.  

Maybe the camera couldn’t focus because the fear itself had diminished (I can justify anything – just watch); I told myself that since the sign had been posted, it had worked; it had deterred would-be thugs and such from stealing and potentially hurting elderly women.  Which is a crime all on its own, in my opinion.

We got back in the car and kept toward the beach. Tank full, humor abetted, concern registered, although…I still didn’t have sunglasses.

And I have to be honest, besides gas, that was the whole point of stopping.

This “learning lessons about life,” well, that was just a fun, free and unexpected gift…at best, merely a footnote.

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