Victoria Childs

Some years ago when I sat in a booster seat, rewinding ‘The Chicks’ cassette, pulling apart the threads at my knee in my old jeans, I made it a point to pester my parents attention to pull over on the side of the road so I could take a picture. If you’re a parent of multiple children with a tight schedule for time.. I don’t need to mention that this is a complicated question that only has one answer: “No.“

My appreciation for the wide open spaces of the roadside began at the moment my mom let me pick any CD out of the middle compartment while pointing at the road atlas and saying, “lead the way, pumpkin.”

Here I am today, leading the way while taking it slow and capturing the beauty and simplicity of sights that are always admired at speed limit or higher.

Robertson Davies once thought, “A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”

In my travels from way down south to the east coast by far these are structures I was compelled to capture.

I could try my best to describe the experience of witnessing coca cola cowboys, mixed in with the grandmas and grandpas and the occasional group of young 20 somethings flirting with each other over the music, all while having to shove and scoot your way through a crowd. I could mention the Tuesday night where I heard a song that stopped me in my tracks, chipping away at the barbed wire I had spent years mending around my heart.

Instead I’ll just tell you about the aroma of cigarettes, beer, and chicken fried steak that surround me when I visit. I believe it is one of the only places I can venture into where the rest of the world stops for a few hours. Soon I’ll hear the scuffling of boots against the concrete dance floor, the metal clink of jewelry from the dancers hands as they cut through the night like a bandana flying high against the wind. When it gets real busy, the sweet release of the Lonestar bottle cap and the clink of the hollow aluminum cans hitting each other in the trash. The evening isn’t broken into until I hear the echoing of heels along the hardwood floor as this becomes a well orchestrated evening.

The music that is played among the band drifts into everyone’s mind, traveling through the soul and beckoning that foot that has beat the pavement all day, to slowly dance to the beat - even if it means sitting at a table for one in the back. I could carry on about honky tonk bars but I’ll let you experience it for yourself.

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