Following Google Maps Can Lead You Anywhere

(To Hear An Audio Version, Skip To The End)

         

My GPS thinks it knows me.  When I am at home, it gives me directions to where it assumes I'm headed based on previous excursions. 

I find this amusing. Anyone who knows my calendar knows that I am chaotic at best and mercurial at worst when it comes to being in the same place from day to day. 

I took the summer off to rest and regroup. I have been home so long, my phone has gotten cocky about telling me where I am going before I even have time to put on my seatbelt. 

Today, I got in the car at noon. The phone confidently offered the coordinates to Planet Fitness. I grinned with triumph. Why does thwarting Google give me so much joy? 

I put in the coordinates to Sumter, SC.

I can't be sure, but I am certain that Google was annoyed. Why do I say this? Well, instead of taking me down I-40 to I-95, it took me to 540 and then dumped me on state highway 1. 

What does this mean? 

It means I spent three and a half hours winding down two-lane highways, through tiny towns, by vast, empty fields, rows and rows of cotton, and small churches...lots, and lots of small churches. 

I wasn't in a hurry, so that was fine, I guess. When I checked the travel sheet The David printed for me, I could see that it took about as much time to go the way my phone took me as it would have had I used the interstates. It was, what's the word? Ah yes. It was scenic. I spent lots of time behind trucks laden with logs, and locals who were just going from place to place down the road. 

It has been a long time since I traveled like this through the back roads and forgotten highways

of NC to SC. Normally, I am on a mission to get to a school, library, or event location. Today, I was just cruisin'.

I love little towns. Main Street always features small, mom-and-pop-type stores. There are bits
of history tucked beneath ancient awnings and peeling paint. Here and there, you can discover new eateries or ancient diners where the locals know to go. All too often, however, the storefronts are empty.

Sometimes it is an empty opening here and there, but today? Today, whole blocks of these tiny centers of commerce were vacant. Their windows dark, the glass cracked, boarded up, or covered with brown paper beneath the torn awnings. They are dusty, abandoned, and lonely-looking. In the past, I might have gotten out to press my face against those windows and look at the bones of someone's dreams left behind. These days, I don't. 

I would hope nobody would demand to know why I'm there, or ask if I'm from "off" or be concerned about my being in a place where nobody looks like me. Nothing would happen, most probably, but I am not willing to risk it anymore. I drive by and imagine.

In its heyday, every Main Street was the place to be. That's where all of the shopping could be found. There were local ice cream parlors, dress shops, bakeries, butchers, furniture stores, and people. So many people. I could see them all. 

Small town gems are awesome!

There were the ladies in their sensible gingham dresses, the men in their suits headed to the haberdasheries. Oh, and the farmers who'd come to town for basic supplies with their horses and wagons. I could also see the large red and white Chevy Bel Airs that might have been parked by a dashing young man as he and his friends popped into their favorite burger joint. The newly minted GI taking his fiancée out for their last dinner before the war. The girls daring to wear pants. The old men sitting in the corner diner complaining that the world is going to hell...news flash, it has been going to hell since their grandfathers sat in the same diner.

It makes me smile. It makes me sad.

Every one of those empty husks held dreams. Someone got new keys with their hearts soaring and the layout in their heads. Someone picked the inventory, dreamt of the day they'd pass it on to someone else, thought about their legacy. Those stores are full of stories I don't know. 

I wanted to walk up to each of them and press my hands against the old brick and ask, "Who were you? What did you hold? Who loved coming here? "

For somebody, this was their favorite place.

For somebody, this was a dream.

For somebody, this was hope.

Now, it is a ghost. A skeleton. A keeper of secrets.

I thought about all of the Main Streets I've traveled that were empty, abandoned, alone, and full of stories.

I've been in towns where most of the homes were empty and their elementary school was holding on by a thread.

So much is vanishing.  

Still, there are new places to be. 

There are new dreams to dream.

On average, 4.7 million new businesses open in America every year.

New dreams.

New hopes.

New favorites.

New possibilities. 

On Friday, here in Sumter, SC, I will be in a new school in the morning. It's so new, GPS doesn't even know it is there.

In the evening, I will be telling at The Sumter Opera House in their Acoustic Cafe.

The opera house is 129 years old.  It has seen some things!

Sumter Opera House

I'll be stopping in tomorrow to get a look at it before my show on Friday - Of Blood and Bone - Chilling Stories for Adults at 7:30 pm.

The Opera House is a place that almost disappeared. Turns out the love of Art is stronger than the ravages of time sometimes. 

On Friday, I will tell new stories about old times. Old stories about what still scares us to death, and stories that make our hearts jump when things go bump in the night.

The stories of the past whisper. They look out at us from empty shells through dusty windows. The remnants of their glory are scattered such that we can't even guess what they mean and who loved them. 

I am a storyteller. My job? My only job? To remember. To Keep Telling The Stories. 

Thank you, Google. I guess you did know where I needed to go after all.

Happy Telling!

 (To hear an audio version, Click Here!)