Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: RSL on March 02, 2017, 11:03:54 am

Title: Voices On the Prairie
Post by: RSL on March 02, 2017, 11:03:54 am
I'll be interesting to find out how old the folks on LuLa are. Here's an age test: http://www.russ-lewis.com/Voices/intro.html. I wrote it fifty years ago and just now gave it a look after a long time. Let's see how many LuLans find it brings back memories.
Title: Re: Voices On the Prairie
Post by: degrub on March 02, 2017, 11:41:22 am
i think i have passed by that horseshoe motel in eastern New Mexico on every trip up to Santa Fe either in Encino or Vaughn - right off the railroad. Or one just like it.
Title: Re: Voices On the Prairie
Post by: RSL on March 02, 2017, 12:07:34 pm
That's very possibly the one, Grub, though there were a lot of them out there in the sixties that looked much like it. The one that always gets me is the old hotel with the glass-topped gas pump. It was just outside Cimmaron, NM. I don't remember exactly when I shot that picture, but I know it was in the seventies. I drove past there two years later and everything was gone. Ah well. . .
Title: Re: Voices On the Prairie
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on March 02, 2017, 02:14:04 pm
That's a lovely essay, Russ. Thanks for sharing it.
I especially like the third photo, in which the pavement comes to an abrupt end.

And I really loved seeing the Burma Shave signs, even here in New England. My personal favorite, probably because my grandfather quoted it from time to time, was:

Granpa knows

It's not too late.

He's gone out

For Widow bait!

Burma Shave.
Title: Re: Voices On the Prairie
Post by: RSL on March 03, 2017, 09:39:02 am
 ;D
Title: Re: Voices On the Prairie
Post by: James Clark on March 03, 2017, 10:30:08 am
I concur - it is a nice piece of writing. 

I drive from Austin, TX to Santa Fe, NM a few times a year, and I will say that in many ways, not a lot has changed.   Maybe the two lane highways are now four lane, but a large part of the journey is still landscape exactly of the type you've shown.
Title: Re: Voices On the Prairie
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on March 03, 2017, 10:57:38 am
Great essay and images.  I was just thinking about the Burma Shave signs the other day in a totally different context.  Of course the Interstate highway system did away with a lot of the interesting things that one saw on road trips during the early 1960s when our family used to head out on vacations.  Fortunately, there is a lot of documentation by you and others that helps rekindle those memories.