Random turns

       After getting my oil changed this morning I decided to take the long way home. And by long way home I mean aimlessly driving around heading in the general direction of my house until I eventually get there. I do this quite a bit and it can definitely be hit or miss. Sometimes I find absolutely nothing and sometimes I happen upon some amazing things to photograph. Today was one of those days where I accidentally made all the right turns!

 

First I found this abandoned go-cart track.

 

 

 

 

Right when I thought there nothing else to see there I found the putt putt course hidden in the weeds.

 

 

 

 

Once I left there I was in full explore mode so I turned down a random dead end road. I just had a feeling about it. At the end of the road was this old warehouse..

 

  And inside the warehouse was some very creepy graffiti.

Then I noticed an old barn in the woods behind the warehouse property.

 

Nothing better than an old truck in the woods!!





 

Shortly after that I was driving through a small town when I decided to turn down a little side street. It took me to a very cool church.

 

As I was leaving the church I saw a water tower down the road. And I LOVE water towers!

 



 

I usually like to have a theme to my blog posts so I didn't intend on writing one today. But then the more I thought about it the more I realized that today did have a theme. I didn't make a bad turn today.  Every driving decision I made today led me to something that I thought was awesome. So I guess the real question is... were there awesome places down the roads I didn't take? I'd like to think there was. Maybe I'll go that way next week.

Field of Honor

              So I was out driving around this morning looking for interesting things to take pictures of and I drove by Veteran's Park in Fayetteville. I have been there several times before but it never looked like this. There were about a thousand flags lined up in rows.  Of course I had to pull in and take a closer look. A sign near the flags tells the story of why they are there. Each flag honors someone who is currently serving, those who have served, and the men and women who have made the supreme sacrifice for our nation’s security and freedom.

                                     Below are a few pictures from my visit there today.

 

            I find it hard to express how walking amongst these flags made me feel. I guess the best way to describe it is that it made me feel like a kid again. When I was a kid my dad would get dressed in his uniform and go off to defend our country. He went to ensure that the freedom that most of us take for granted was protected. I was proud of him. I was proud of America. Today I felt that rush of pride again as a walked across that field. For a brief moment there were no heavy burdens for me to carry, there were no problems to cloud my mind. There was only pride, happiness, and a perspective that is far too easily lost in our busy lives. That, to me, is what Memorial Day is all about.

Life Through Broken Windows

         I haven't really been taking any pictures lately which usually doesn't make for great blogging topics. "Sitting on my couch watching old episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond" doesn't really sound like a good title for a blog...  

         So this morning when I woke up I decided I needed something that was going to break me out of my funk and there was only one place I could think of. The old hoarder's property in Raeford! The first time I went there was one of the greatest days ever because of the stories he told and the very photogenic junk that he so closely guarded.

         When I pulled up the muddy drive way and parked next to the old building surrounded by junk I could see the old man standing at his work bench tinkering with a ceiling fan. Laying next to him on the ground was his faithful dog who barely lifted his head when I walked up. The old man instantly recognized me and asked me how my pictures turned out. I told him that they turned out great and thanked him again for letting me walk around. Then I asked him if I could do it again. He immediately said that would be no problem but he threw in a warning. He told me that my shoes looked very clean and it had been raining a lot. "There's a hell of a lot of mud out there", he said with a grin. I thanked him for his concern, shook his hand, and started my walk through the mud.

Looking through the tall weeds at one of his old buses 

 

It's amazing what you can find when you look through a broken window.

 

It skews the world in the most amazing ways...

 

Looking through broken glass always makes me stop and

daydream about what could have happened and the people

before me who looked through it when it was clean and new..

 

The beauty in it gets me every time.

 

 

      I noticed that a lot had changed from when I here last. It's springtime now and nature is reclaiming it's territory...one inch at a time.

 

 

 

 

Things that were easily seen before are vanishing into the brush..

 

 

I sat behind the wheel of some of the vehicles and imagined a time when it was someone's new truck. How happy they were when they drove it home. You can feel the energy in these vehicles. They tell an amazing story. 

 

 

This is my favorite old truck. It has such character.

 

 

 

         The old man told me that all of this won't be here much longer. There is a sadness to him as he tells me that he's having to sell the property and all of these old buses, trucks, cranes, and military vehicles will be hauled off and sold as scrap metal. That will truly be a sad day because the stories they tell are magical. It will be a shame if others aren't able to enjoy them like I have. This place makes me think, it makes me sad, and it makes me happy. A place that evokes a full range of emotions like this should be treasured, not destroyed. But that's what happens to the past. It is hauled away and replaced by something shiny and new, with only the photographs to remember it by.

 

  

 

 



 

 

 

 

Saying goodbye

       Some of you may know that my dad suffered a stroke in 2009 and he is currently in an assisted living facility. He has aspirations to walk again and live on his own at some point which I encourage and support. Unfortunately right now that is not an option and therefore his property and house are somewhat abandoned. He decided to sell the place about a year ago because he is unable to maintain it at this point and now there is a buyer. The closing is coming up and so I had to make the trip down there to clean out the house and put my dad's stuff in storage.

       I figured I would feel some sort of emotion while I was there but I definitely didn't anticipate the level of sadness that I would feel. The memories that were evoked while working in each room and walking around the 3 acres on that rainy day were very intense and surprising. The new owners have plans to bulldoze the house and start from scratch with the land which made things even worse. Once the work was done I decided to walk around and take a few pictures..

My dad probably spent 90% of his life outside. A lot of it sitting

in his favorite spot on this porch next to his shed.

 

 

 

This is the tree that was struck by lightning while I was walking

 towards it during a storm in 1996. I have no idea why I was outside..

 

This is the best climbing tree in the history of the world. It's a magnolia tree

that has to be several hundred years old. I spent a lot of time up there as a kid.

 

 This is the swing that my dad and I built shortly after we moved in back in

1989. There was never a better tool hander than I was...ever.

 The swing is still standing strong after all this time.

 

 A porch swing out in front of the house. It is worn down by time.

Worn down by life too I suppose.

 

But there is hope for the future....

 

 

         Although I'll never again walk through that house, play in that tree, swing on that swing, sit with my dad in his favorite spot on that porch, I am comforted in the fact that there is a future for that place. Another family will live there. Another kid will climb in that tree and hopefully appreciate it the way I did. Life will occur in this place again, and it will be a happy life. 

 

 

One man's trash....

            So I set out today to find a location to practice my long exposure shots on some late night traffic but ended up meeting a real life hoarder and avid collector of junk. I was driving through Raeford, NC when I went past a line of trees that had an old jeep wedged in between them. My first thought was that I need to turn around and take a picture but then that thought was interrupted by a really old school bus turned over next to some more trees. JACKPOT!!!

So I quickly turned around and started driving back the other way past acre after acre of old cars, tractors, buses, and other machinery that I couldn't even identify. I was just about to park next to the road and trespass, as I have been known to do to get my pictures, when I saw an old building with a truck parked next to it. This was where I met him.

 

 

The front door was blocked by an old antique table so I tried to find another way in. I knocked on the old metal door on the side. The door opened a little as I was knocking and I could hear someone's voice so I pushed the door a little. As the door swung open I could see that the room was PACKED full of junk from top to bottom. As I was standing there just taking it all in I heard an old man say hello. I turned to see him and his dog making his way through the junk to where I was. I introduced myself and told him how cool his stuff looked from the road. He told me that he was 86 years old and he had been collecting stuff for 70 years and most of it was still here. I swear this guy needs to be on American Pickers immediately! Hopefully Hoarders won't come knocking on his door because it would be a shame for him to lose any of his stuff.  After talking to him for a few minutes I asked him if he would mind if I walked around and took some pictures of his place. He told me I could but that I was to watch out for the guy on the forklift because he might not be able to see me walking around out there. I told him I would be careful but honestly I never saw any signs of a guy, or a forklift. He could have been confused..

To get to the really good stuff I had to cross this "bridge". I don't think it was made for anyone heavier than a frail, 86 year old man but I gave it a try anyway.

 

Here is some of what I found on the other side.

 

 

 

 

I  have absolutely no idea what this piece of machinery is..

 

I found another building and thought I would give you an idea of what kind of stuff this guy has..

 

 

 

He told me that he loved school buses and never wanted to see them destroyed so he would buy them whenever he got the chance.



 

 

 

 

 

 

I could have walked around on this guy's property all day long but after taking about a hundred pictures, falling down in the mud twice, and almost impaling myself on razor sharp scrap metal I headed back to the rickety bridge to thank the junk man for his hospitality. As I entered the old building I found him standing at a work bench quietly tinkering with an old flashlight that he said was "acting up". He continued to work on that flashlight as we were talking as if it was the most important thing in the world. I get the feeling that he feels that way about all his stuff. That truly gives meaning to the old phrase "One man's trash is another man's treasure"