Velociworld

Roadside Attractions

I enjoy taking backroads when I travel, as I suspect many of you do, when time is no constraint. And ofttimes getting from point A to point B offers no alternative, either. I celebrate those moments, again as I suspect many of you do.

I found myself in this situation today, returning home from my aunt's funeral in Columbus, Georgia. An unbelievably sweet lady, by the way, and my mother's doppleganger. She lived a wonderful 85 years, though, and may she rest peacefully. So rewarding to see her husband, too. My Uncle John. Sweet John, we call him. A mighty man. 101st Airborne Ranger. Retired a Sergeant-Major. Veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Korea, two acknowledged tours in Vietnam, two tours for The Company unacknowledged by the government, performing that which needed to be done. My hero. I love these people, my family.

So, I was returning to Jax via US of A Highway 82, and I passed through Sasser, Georgia. And pulled into Mark's Melon Patch.

I love a damned side of the road vegetable stand, especially one like Mark's. A 25-year staple, he has hundreds of home-growed punkins, and wallermillions, 100 varieties of personally canned jams, jellies, relishes, okras, veggies. Haybales, scarecrows, gourdeses, squashums, maizes, cotton bale centerpieces (!).

He even has a giant inflatable jack o'lantern to lure in the kiddies, and bathrooms to lure in the incontinent.

Now, I'm not saying Mark's is one of those high-toned, artsy-fartsy patches like Burt's, drawing in the cognescenti of Atlanty with their high-falootin' hayrides and field trips and such, as certain elements have lamented to me, who knew Burt's in the way back of when good old days 10, 12 years back, and still enjoy Burt's, but it's not the same. Mark, though, is in Sasser, Fucking, Georgia! And has to trade up to the post office in Dawson. He won't be corrupted for at least three more years, by my reckoning.

I prefer to think of Mark's as Burt's Before The Fall. Before a nice roadside veggie stand and punkin patch could be corrupted by the goddamed daytrippers out of Atlanta. Where you can still stand in the cornfield and take a damned pee.

Nothing wrong with Burt's, of course. If matching gingham and calico ensembles on your trustafarian kids blows up your paisley skirt, while you fret over how many gourd centerpieces you can fit into the back of the Navigator.

I digress, though, class envy oozing out of my pores. I have the class, you see. They have the money. And the pores.

The main point, though, the central theme, Mrs. Harper, is that I extract enormous pleasure from the simple autumnal exercises. A nice respite on the side of the road. Thumping a melon, hefting a pumpkin, smiling as two small children wrestle with a Hallowe'en scarecrow. Sampling relishes and jams, blackberry preserves. The divertissements of my youth. Innocence is palpable in the air on the side of the road, fullfillment realized by dint of a maize doll purchased for a few mere dollars for an appreciative child.

The sweltering, torrid summer is over, folks. The air is crisp, the variegated leaves denude, lithe youths play football in the biting air, and Mark Foley wants to fuck them , and Velociman, channelling his little tiny inner hobgoblin, seeks his receding childhood.