Doctor HP Flowers

Photowalk: A Rainy Day

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     It’s amazing how much mischief can be created whilst the truck sits in the shop.  Brakes, again.  That’s a heavy truck sufferin’ from ten years of braking down rugged mountain backroads.
     So, I spent some time at home scanning slides from 1994.  A photowalk in White Sulphur springs.  A day of fog and rain.  “Nearly crushed by a runaway double-wide weaving into my lane,” speaks the log.  Parked at the Post Office and spent two rolls of Kodachrome 200, 36 exposures each.

    


White Sulphur Springs, Wva
Greenbrier County
Monday 6 June 1994

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Welcome to Mudhole (pop. 13)

Mudhole Activities Committee is pleased to announce
a fabulous slate of organized activities for next year:

     - Square dance contest
     - Horseshoe Tournament
     - Pancake suppers
     - Easter egg hunt
     - Possum skinning demonstration
     - First Fridays teen club
     - Fourth of July parade
     - Weekly militia drill
     - Halloween apple bobbing
     - Sunrise revival
     - Charity bake sale
     - Popcorn stringing at Xmas

© d081025-010  Community Center
  Mudhole, Tennessee
  Monroe County
  Saturday 25 October 2008

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The Dream

During a sentimental dream
My bicycle drifts downhill
And disappears around the corner.

    

© r0093-04  Village Street
  Harmon, West Virginia
  Randolph County
  Friday 31 May 1985

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Hear the Steam

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     Hear the steam.  The whistle blows.  Anxious mothers pass fresh donuts and coffee to husbands and sons boarding the train, called to war.  Feel the history, a grand hotel and depot from the 1870's now on the National Register. This, by gosh, is a railroad town.  After a long day in the saddle managing maps and focusing three-sixty, high and low, Stevenson is a backroads desert, my cherry cheesecake.

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Stevenson, Alabama
Jackson County
Friday 7 December 2007

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The Korner Shop Cafe

     Fall colors arrived late in the Potomac Highlands this year, but I found Spring in The Korner Shop Café.  It wasn't their outrageous pork tenderloin, scrambles, French toast, and bottomless coffee served under soft breakfast-appropriate country music.  It wasn't Mort Kunstler's famous painting of Stonewall Jackson, watching his horse graze, symbolic of his dying utterance "let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."  It wasn't the wall full of Franklin high school group pictures: girls and boys basketball, graduating classes, and the old school house.  Nor the mounted trout gazing across the room at old Fairmont Ice Cream signs.
     No, Spring in the Korner Shop Cafe moves easily from table to table in constant motion with effortless conversation.  Spring here means Suzie Hart-Hartman serving the famished six days and sixty hours a week.  Suzie's a people person, "I love my job," she volunteers.  That's easy to see.  Recently married she occasionally uses her maiden name by habit, but that's o.k.  And get this, Suzie's a dedicated Jeff Gordon fan and has crammed two shelves along the back wall with memorabilia. It soothes the aching hip joints of an aging backroads photographer to find some hospitality like this and say pleasantly, "a bit more coffee please Suzie…"

    

Franklin, West Virginia
Pendleton County
Wednesday 18 October 2006

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Viewtown to Pearisburg

     Colors on the move. Leaf sugars peak and melt day after day, flowing over ridges, spilling into hollows, surging around clearings, arching over fidgety creeks, decorating with spectral colors.  First radiant; then burnt. The tides ebb - this way and that way without purpose, hurrying and slowing in synch with the anonymous clock.  I sampled this evanescence during a four day radial search centered in Franklin West Virginia, Pendleton County, headwaters South Branch Potomac River. National forests, mountain farms, crossroad villages, country churches, and Halloween goblins dressed in alluring color.

© r1421-03  Potomac at Franklin
  Franklin, West Virginia
  Pendleton County
  Wednesday 18 October 2006

© d061017-006  Curves and Colors
  Old Forest Service Route 74
  Grant County, West Virginia
  Tuesday 17 October 2006

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Sit With the Melons

     Doctor Flowers returned from his Backroads Expedition XXII late Friday night the 9th of June.  Even tho' a bit under the weather he was heard shouting expletives like "fun" and "enjoyable" even "kick-ass" as he limped off to a real bed for the weekend.  Unfortunately, the unsympathetic managerial types at work expected rapid catch-up on major project tasks purposefully neglected during the Expedition leaving very little time for sorting trip photos and experiences nor posting to the web site.  He asked me to tell you that he'd rather, "sit with the melons."  (So to speak.)

Catawba, North Carolina
Catawba County
Thursday 25 May 2006

In the Tank

     This Tank, this poised silver rocket, this vigilant watch tower, holds much more than water.  Standing tall for all to see it holds the pride of a community's becoming.  "Look here and take note," commands the Tank, "Lawrenceville now sips from a single fountain. That puts us on the map!"

     Today, it's kinda sad to reflect that a town's becoming is marked by the appearance of a regional WalMart.  What's in that Tank.

Title:            © Water Tank.  r0767-37
Series:           Small Towns
Location:        Lawrenceville, Virginia
                    Brunswick County
Date:             Tuesday 22 November 1994

My Kind of Town

     Wouldn't it be nice to stroll by the Potomoc River early each morning.  In different seasons, different weather, spectacular light. That's Franklin West Virginia, Pendleton County.
     Franklin barely makes a ripple on Google.  "Find a date in (fill in the blank)…"  "Find a part-time job in (fill in the blank)…"  Maybe Carl's Barber Shop needs some help.  But that's a story for later.
     Mr. Google fails to notice Thompson's Motel.  One night costs $30 bucks, up from $25 a coupla years back. I should tell that quicksand-like search engine about the momma robin that nested on the electrical box above my door.  Skittering about nervously, showing powerful protective urges, then settling down, casting a careful eye my way over her shoulder.  Maybe I should tell that voracious algorithm-driven engine about the chicken that evidently owns my parking spot, boldly indifferent to the fact that my room number's painted on it.
     Mister magnificent gold-plated Google overlooks the mean French toast scrambled egg combo for breakfast at Thompson's restaurant.  Which also prides itself as the Potomoc Headquarters (West Virginia State Chapter) of the National Wild Turkey Federation. Winner of both the 'jakes' and the 'gobbler' ribbons for 2002, 2003, and 2004.  An achievement certified by a huge expertly rendered painting, a gobbler and two fat hens in a pretty wood, wonderfully framed.
     Google missed all of this, completely.  That's my kind of town.

Title:            © Franklin on Potomoc.  r0705-06
Series:           Water Scenes
Location:         Franklin, West Virginia
                    Pendleton County
Date:             Friday 3 June 1994

Bring Your Own Axe

Monday 30 May 2005
Webster Springs, WV

     A little serendipity goes a long way.  I've often visited Webster Springs over the years, a county seat that wears with pride the calluses and textures bestowed by the rugged mountain life.  It's a good town for a quiet photowalk with the added opportunity for me to renew old acquaintances, if they still survive.
     I photograph a larger-than-life lumberjack in front of the county court house, a red fire hydrant on some yellow steps, a street scene, a doorway leading upstairs to a yard sale, a fancy red rose bush by a porch downtown, then pause with delight in front of Son of Doc's Barbershop. Pause with reverie is a better account. This door is one of my all time favorites, and it warms me that all's well and Doc's is still lookin' good.
     Swinging the viewfinder left I focus on a poster in the window.  There's a kindly looking man in the picture standing atop a huge pile of wood chunks smiling broadly, dressed in blue work jeans and red flannel shirt, hoisting high overhead a Stihl chain saw in triumphant jubilation. The caption reads:  "Winner and Stihl Champion.  Arden Cogar, Webster Springs, WV.  Winner of 43 National and World Lumberjack Championships."
    "How are you doing…," words from a distance barely able to penetrate my fog.  "How are you doing…," again as I begin to realize that someone is calling.  He's lugging and pushing boxes around a coupla doors away, raising clouds of dust with good old fashioned West Virginia perspiration.
     It's Ben Randolph who wonders, right away, if I only photograph barber shops.  Ben just purchased an old 4-story hotel, doesn't yet know what he will do with it, but is investing gobs of sweat equity to spruce up the place for the possibilities ahead.  That's a great statement about the spirit of Webster Springs and the directions for the county as more visit or move here, ahead of the monoculture tsunami, to enjoy the rugged mountain life.
     Ben tells me about the 47th National Woodchoppers Festival this past weekend and how it's growing bigger and better and more successful each Memorial weekend.  His enthusiasm is understandable because of his association with the Webster County Economic Development Authority.  Honest promotion and good hard work bode well for Webster Springs in the years ahead.  For me, I'm determined to return  for my first Woodchoppers Festival.  For the rest of you, Click Here for the application forms to compete in the events.  There's the Hot Saw, Single Buck, Springboard, Standing and Underhand Championships, plus the Axe Throw. You should plan to bring your own axe, however.

Title:            © Woodchopper.  r1391-12
Series:           None of the Above
Location:        Webster Springs WV
Date:             Monday 30 May 2005