Voices On the Prairie

[RSL]

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.

[degrub]

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.

[RSL]

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. . .

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

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.

[RSL]

 

[James Clark]

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.

[Alan Goldhammer]

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.