Doctor HP Flowers

"Sorry..."

.
"But, my truck won't burn hydrogen?"

    

© r0607-37  Esso Pump
New Hampden, Virginia
Highland County
Thursday 3 June 1993

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...with Gas Pump

     Parts of Alexander County are very friendly to backroad gawking and photography.  This shot, taken a week ago today, is the first from my recent winter trip.  Ground level steaming from winter dew did not show as well as I had hoped.  Heart level steaming was unaffected.

    

© d081202-003  Old Gas Pump
  Caldwell Pond Road
  Alexander County, North Carolina
  Tuesday 2 December 2008

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Two Gas Pumps

Wednesday 6 June 2001
Log: day14/2, page 58

    

     Whip-o-will called all last night.  Must have been the rain.  All night coughing again.  Pulled another diaphragm muscle.  Hurts a lot.  09:00am stop for gas at Baker.  Ice and marshmallow covered chocolate sno balls.  Mind dulled by antihistamines, throat raw and closed.  Dense fog west along SR 55.  Heavy dampness squeezes my head.  Eyes and inner ears all pumped up.  Throbs.  Truck covered with mud.  Brakes wet and vibrate. (If this fails to qualify as 'road worthy' then nothing will.)

     09:30am  Stop for fantastic  gas pumps.

    

© r1190-37 Two Gas Pumps
  Hardy County, Wva

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Pumped and/or Gassed

     Far beyond my ability to forsee, in 1997 the good folks in Shooting Creek were already anticipating shortages and beginning to experiment with alternative fuels.

    

Title:            © Gas Pumps.  r1021-33
Series:           None of the Above
Location:        Shooting Creek, NC
                   Clay County
Date:             Sunday 12 October 1997

The Pearly Gate

Interview with Doctor HP Flowers
for The Journal of Sublime Abstraction
your host, Beetman Ruffage, editor

Ruffage:  Mr. Flowers my staff notes that you've been overheard saying, "St. Peter is nothing more than a buck-toothed, bulb-nosed, hollow-eyed blockhead with a menacing chrome brow and a 5 o'clock shadow; and furthermore I don't feel much like dressing up for him even if he's gonna be a prick about the whole thing."  Did you really say that?

Flowers:   Yes...

Ruffage:  Mr. Flowers some have detected in your recent work, The Pearly Gate, a yearning for at least a virtual transformation of your stylistic mannerisms to bequeath to the world, with your neo-natural industrialism, a precious moment to remember.  Were you emphasizing the possibilities for a new kind of authenticity displaying an undulating illusionistic space that breaks definitively from your earlier kinetic effects that would promote the aggressive elements of the image, which is nonetheless impressive, to prevent a static compensation?

Flowers:  Of course!

Title:            © The Pearly Gate.  r1097-27
Series:           Gas Pumps
Location:        Polk County, Tennessee
Date:             Saturday 9 October 1999

Jung Personality Test

Flowers:    You find it difficult to express your feelings.
Air Pump:   "No."

Flowers:    You rapidly get involved in social life.
Air Pump:   "No."

Flowers:    You often think about mankind and destiny.
Air Pump:   "No."

Flowers:     You plan your actions in advance.
Air Pump:    "No."

Flowers:     You value justice higher than mercy.
Air Pump:    "No."

Flowers:     You easily understand theoretical principles.
Air Pump:    "No."

Flowers:   You are 72% introverted, 58% sensing, 32% thinking, 20% intuiting, 12% feeling, and zero otherwise.  Your personal unconscious is not apparent.  Your mother archetype is rudimentary. There's confusion between your anima and animus.  You violate both the principles of opposites and equivalence.  You have no left brain.  You have no right brain.  In fact, you are brainless.  Furthermore, I find that disgusting '69' tattooed on your forehead to be ribald and provocative.

Air Pump:  "Get a fucking life, dude!"

Title:          © Blue Air Pump.  r0225-15
Series:         Gas Pumps
Location:      Surry County, Virginia
Date:           Monday 30 May 1988

Snapping Shoals Pump

Special Orders: 9 November 1864
 "For the purpose of military operations, this army is divided into two wings. The order of march will be by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible, converging at points hereafter to be indicated. The columns will start habitually at 7 a.m., and make about 15 miles per day."
     -- Major-General W. T. Sherman

 On November 15th, Sherman's right wing leaves Atlanta, heads south toward Macon then veers left along the South River. The other departs east toward Augusta, then south. Relentless streams of men and arms merging with the South River, flowing seaward together. Eight days later, all lines of march converge on the state capital at Milledgeville Georgia; citizens surrender peacefully.
 The village of Snapping Shoals, at a convenient South River crossing, can be reached in about two army days. I pause there often. It's my kind of place, built specially for tailgate sittin' and quality meditation. Nothing much happens in Snapping Shoals any more, and that's the point.

Saturday 23 March 1991

 11:40 am. Turn south on Sr 212 toward Monticello at Wesley Chapel. Shrubs and fruit trees bloom. There's pink garden phlox. Jonquils, wild radish and star-of-bethlehem. Violets, redbud and red maple winglets. Tiny green leaf buds, the Spring Line.
 12:10 pm. Snapping Shoals. Photograph the old steel truss over the South River, and a patch of scruffy flowers. I call on an old friend - a gas pump leaning precariously, rusted and completely gutted. The last sale obliterated. I marvel thru the viewfinder. Wishing. What if I could hear clattering cavalry, the stomping of tired feet, groaning wagons and snorting horses. The echo of calls and orders.
 12:20 pm. I hear the shuffling of marching feet. A local vagabond stumbles my way down the gravelly road. Very drunk. Trailed by a black 3-legged dog also stumbling and shuffling. "Got his leg shot off by pot growers," he mumbles, flowing to the sea.

Title: © Snapping Shoals Pump. r0417-03
Series: Gas Pumps
Location: Sr 212, Newton County, Georgia
Date: Saturday 23 March 1991