« | Home | »

Sights & Sounds

A DayGlo Roadside Reminder

by Reagan Walker | 1, Add your Comment | Jul 5, 2009

DSCN0549When I first passed this old bus sticking out of the woods on the side of a winding road in the North Carolina mountains, I was a little lost and a little stressed about finding my way to my destination before nightfall. Yet it caught my eye and my imagination. Several times over the next couple of days I thought of it – the white, the rust, the DayGlo paint is slowiy giving way to the green advance of nature. With only a flash impression, I created a whole fantasy about the bus. Maybe because I recently saw “Hair” on Broadway, I dreamt that hippies had lived in it. They bought it used and cheap and joined a peace caravan. People smoked pot in it, made love, wore tie dye t-shirts and those cool blouses with the little round mirrors.

So I went back. Out of my way, but I had the time. It wasn’t until I got out of my car and approached to photograph it, that I could read what the spray paint on the side of the bus said.

Oh.

A racial slur. A warning. You won’t see the side of the bus here; in the South, we have seen that scrawl of hatred too much. It was a reminder that “Let the Sun Shine In” was a plaintive song.

printer friendly


Note: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for the agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of LikeTheDew.com. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click here to report a violation.

One Response to “A DayGlo Roadside Reminder”

  1. kimdegualle says:
    July 6, 2009 at 7:12 am

    A decaying reminder of the ugly past. Hope for the present and future from the author’s optimistic fantasy. Our thought processes are vastly different in this day.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

What is CAPTCHA and why do I have to enter it to post a comment?

Quick answer: Look at the picture (below) that contains letters. Type those letters in the CAPTCHA Code box.

Longer explanation: Our comment system now requires a CAPTCHA test (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" for all comments (unless you have registered and are logged-in). CAPTCHA is an image of letters that is dynamically generated (click the speaker icon to hear it or the arrows to load another test that may be easier to read). The letters, because they're part of an image and not text (e.g. text that you could cut and paste), are difficult for a spambot or other computer program to read. Yet, a person has little trouble reading the letters in a captcha image and then typing them into the form. Using a captcha test on our website is a great way to ensure, for instance, that a person and not a spambot is filling out a web form (we used to get 100 or so spam comments every day which our volunteers had to wade through). Also, a captcha can make it difficult for a person to continuously resubmit form information and overwhelm our comment function. If you hate CAPTCHA, just register on LikeTheDew.com and login (registration is on the bottom left of our home page) and you won't be stopped by CAPTCHA.

You can add images to your comment by clicking here.

Related Posts

Reagan Walker
Reagan Walker
About the author Reagan Walker: Reagan Walker is a former Sunday Editor of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. A veteran writer and editor, she was an award-winning food writer and has covered other beats ranging from education to the war on terrorism to immigration.

Last 5 posts by Reagan Walker