vituperation

July 17, 2002

Many thanks to all who recommended Geocaching, it looks like a lot of fun, without the dorky little rubber stamps.

I bought a nose- and ear-hair trimmer today at Walmart.

It’s official. I’m old.

And speaking of Walmart, there were a couple of green-haired Goths in front of me. Wearing combat boots and trenchcoats. Well, the guy was. The girl was wearing some sort of felt-looking black dress. They were both wearing eyeliner and black lipstick.

Am I the only one who finds such attire amusing?

…continued

“Bessie,” I called out, “grab the camera! Let’s take a road trip.”

Robyn grabbed the camera and we headed to the car. We took - we being Robyn, I was driving - plenty of pictures, and I offer you the following photo essay of the Quest for the Letterbox.

Alabama is the land of cotton. They’ll plant cotton anywhere there’s a piece of empty land, shit you not. Or soybeans. We grow a lot of soybeans here, too. Though it’s hard to tell from the picture the cotton is blooming here and covered with pretty flowers, instead of the bolls you normally associate with cotton.

Approaching the coolest general store I’ve ever been in, on Highway 64 in Bodenham, Tennessee. This store sells lots of old-timey stuff, like marbles, sarsaparilla, and homemade fried pies. I once bought an apple peeler in this store similar to this one, but that mounts on the edge of a table like a c-clamp. The store was closed on Saturday, the first time I’ve ever encountered, and I fear it may be going (or gone) out of business.

A true shame.

From another store just beyond the one above. You can buy a “hunk-a-pizza” at this place. We stopped here to pee, one of four such stops over the course of our three-hour tour. We’re some peeing folks.

We’re entering Lawrence County - aka Crockett Country, as evidenced by the large image of Davy Crockett standing proud. And, if you didn’t know it, Lawrence County is also home to the Amish and Granny’s Network.

Drawing ever closer to our destination, we entered Lawrenceburg, the self-proclaimed “birthplace of Southern Gospel music.” Also much-touted in Lawrenceburg is the fact that it’s the hometown of U.S. Senator Fred “Hey, it’s that guy!” Thompson.

As you enter the state park, you see yet another big homage to Davy Crockett. Though it’s hard to tell from the shrunken picture, Davy is, in fact, wearing his coonskin cap.

Coincidentally, there was a car show going on at the park, and lots of southern people everywhere. Plenty of Mustangs were on display, but we had our sights on something far more noble than mere cars - we were after the almighty letterbox!

We draw closer to the elusive covered bridge. At this point, we’re way back in the park, and haven’t seen any civilized people for hours. Well, at least not since we crossed the state line into Tennessee.

Close your mail client, Volunteers.

YES!

It exists! The covered bridge exists!

Unfortunately, at this point in our trip the battery in the camera died. We had the crappy OLD camera with us because someone, whose name may or may not be Robyn, forgot to charge the battery in the NEW camera.

We got out of the car and walked to the bridge, which shimmered in the sunlight like a big jewel. Dragonflies zoomed all around us, big scary Jurassic-Park looking creatures, dive-bombing towards our heads only to veer off at the last second. Grasshoppers and cicadas screeched loudly in the high grass which grew alongside the bog the bridge spanned.

My, God, the bog. That has to be some of the creepiest water I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some creepy water in my day. It had green scum growing over parts of it, and pollywogs (big jumbo-sized tadpoles) swam lazily under the surface with small fish.

Eagerly, we went to the northwestern corner of the bridge and examined the floor. It was concrete, so there was no easy way to look under it, like the clue suggested.

Unless, that is, one edged his way along the lip of concrete suspended over the ultra-creepy water.

Of course I did. I crept out along the little ledge of concrete until my heels were hanging over the edge, then I crouched down and crawled under the bridge as best I could. It was very close, and looked to be a particularly juicy breeding ground for things like black widows. I looked around madly, one eye looking for the stone hiding the trasure and the other eye looking for creepycrawlies.

There was no stone at all under the northwestern corner of the bridge. Or under the southwestern. The eastern side - and I checked, rechecked, then checked again to make sure I wasn’t stupid - was nothing but stones. The west, however, was stone-free. We checked stones on the eastern side, flipping them this way and that, but didn’t find a thing.

Which sucked.