Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

One of the common questions people ask is:

What is the most interesting thing you saw?

First, I am one of those people who are thrown by extreme questions such as what is “the most” or “the least” and such. I freeze physically while I start ranking things in my mind trying to find the most or the least. I have learned a little better to deal with such questions and I translate them into something like:
What are some of the more interesting things you saw?

Even given this important (to me) rewording of the question, I usually went blank. What was interesting? What did grab my attention? Blank. Rats.

Given time and several looks back through my photographs and blog entries, I have a list of some (not all, as I reserve the right to add to the list) of the more interesting things I saw while taking a walk.

Drive-In Movies Theaters – I thought these were extinct, especially in the mid-Atlantic where the weather is too cold for the theater to stay open little more than six months of the year. Yet, I saw a half a dozen of these places.

Water Towers – Towns put odd things on their water towers. “Sock Town” was a unique one. It is unfortunate that most water towers in small towns are covered with rust. I had a special interest in double water towers. I only saw these side-by-side towers in two places.

Fences – Do you know how many different ways there are to keep livestock in one area and out of another? Plenty.

Post Offices – Most small-town post offices came out of one of three pages in some U.S. Postal Service blueprint book. What an eyesore on the American landscape. Surely they could have done better. Still, their were a handful of wonderful, unique post offices on the way.

Churches – The old ones; the ones built before 1800.

Little buildings – There is something about a small building that fascinates me. Complete, standalone buildings that are about 10′ by 10′ or less. It seems that I could lock myself in one of those and write a book or three.

Abandoned old buildings – These were mostly old stores and houses. They were everywhere. I find it amazing how vegetation grows inside, outside, on top of, and straight through these old places.

Restored cars – Cadilacs mostly.

Old private colleges – These look like Hollywood movie sets of the perfect, quant college. I had to remind myself that the students and faculty there probably feel a lot of pressure and anxiety everyday of the year. Some examples include Emory&Henry, Tusculum, and Stillman. These all started as small Bible colleges.

Small Bible Colleges – I was surprised to see these. They have one small building that used to be a motel or a doctor’s office or something. There are probably 20 full-time students and two or three part-time teachers. This is how the old private colleges started. Maybe one day these small Bible colleges will be like Emory&Henry, Tusculum, and Stillman.

Small Colleges – These are public colleges, but are small. Roanoke College in Roanoke County, Virginia comes to mind. Like the old private colleges, they look like a Hollywood movie set of the quant college.

Unusual animals – I saw a few llamas, one emu, and two catfish.

Libraries – I saw big and small, old and new. It is fascinating how people store the knowledge we have accumulated.