When I was driving around the Bootheel a few years back, I kept running into what I call “ghost houses.” Those are places where you can tell by the way the trees are spaced or cleared that a house probably lived there long ago.
In the spring, there’s another clue: yellow flowers that someone planted years and years in the past.
I didn’t shoot many of them
I didn’t shoot the ones I encountered in the Bootheel because I was searching for things that were there, not things that were missing. I learned later, that the ghost houses would have been the perfect metaphor for counties that lost as much of 80% of their population when mechanical cotton harvesters came in.
I’ll look harder next spring
I’ll make a broaden my search next spring. These were spotted in one afternoon’s drive in 2018. None of them convey exactly what I wanted to show.
Who planted the flowers?
I have to wonder who planted these flowers so many years ago that they outlived the gardeners and the buildings they surrounded.
My momma who will be 90 next month and I drive around and look for the same thing! “Momma, you ever been down that road?” We take it till we find where it ends, stopping at every old cemetery and little church and abandoned place we find taking photos and just wondering some of the same things……..
The first rule to my Road Warriorettes is that anyone in the car can shout “STOP!” at any time. U-Turns are not only allowed, but encouraged.
Rule Two: avoid chain restaurants. Eat local whenever possible.