They call it Old Car City. It’s in White, Georgia.
In Georgia, where the shimmering heat makes the mosquito glow.
They call it Old Car City, but it is not only the cars that are old.
The memories are too.
Over 34 acres, vegetation lives in symbiosis with metal, a slow dance that blurs the ends.
4500 hundred cars in various stages of industrial decay mix with trees and shrubs, that wonder what these foreigners want.
And they won’t leave either.
Whatever hope the greenery had of total domination was forgotten long ago. Then through the chlorophyll shines a hint of rust-brown at every step.
Oldsmobiles, Ford Model Ts, a Studebaker, with the “-aker” gone leaving just a “Studeb”.
Plymouths, a Hudson – wheels from times gone by.
I thought of the families who filled those seats.
The hoodlum who made a getaway.
The young lovers fogging windows on a hot night.
The dreams, worries, aspirations, and hopes – rusting away in the summer heat in Georgia.
Walking through, on these miles of trails, it’s almost poetic.
Death and life all at once. History in the present.
Even as the new makes it’s way up, it has to reckon with what was. A constant reminder.
Most time, the old gives way. It buckles.
Not this time.
It’s hanging on, giving us glimpses of what the present always makes us leave behind.
Yeah,…in Old Car City.