The corn was small, dry in its rows. Row after row.
I drove down through the fields, acres and acres of them, along the back roads. Looking for the lane I slowed down, encountering no traffic except for the occasional slow moving truck. Other than that all that took up the roads were blackbirds that flew up as I came through and then settled back down onto the black top. Heat mirages waved up as the road stretched out between its shadier, curvier sections. Winter wheat, yellowing on the stalk and drying in the sun, frizzled and fried like a blonde burnout.

My hair kept catching the wind, both windows down, the humidity sticking my dress to me along my back and chest, sweat edging my upper lip. There wasn't any wind here to clear it off like there was on the coast, the air all full of spit. And there wasn't a shady cloud in the sky, the sun magnified and reflected off the hot flat open.

All the houses along the road up to that point were either cinder block three room homes, sometimes covered in vinyl siding, or they were dilapidated farm houses. But as the farmland began to stretch out in dusty expanses, the houses grew larger,with trees in the front sometimes shading a moss-like yard extending out from a front porch covered in chairs. But these were few and far between, the roadside littered with dumpy little villages of three or four houses built right on top of each other, yards littered with rusting cars and plastic swingsets and yard furniture. Scruffy dogs barked from chainlink prisons as I drove by, paying little heed to their calls.

Men in the fields were gathering sweet hay, all covered in denim and long t-shirts in defense the of hay dust which made your skin itch to the bone and your eyes swollen. They were red faced and sweating, but raised a hand in courtesy as a greeting of my travels. This was a custom here as I had learned, and even though growing up on the coast I had encountered this kind acceptance, what I encountered more often were the cold or wandering stares of tourists, you can never seem to keep their eyes, or their hands for that matter, to themselves. People here waved from porches, from the drivers side of their cars, from tractors, and from lawn chairs sat out in their yard, where they keep a watchful eye on the road during the heat of the day.

Camomille flowers and a small yellow wildflower lining the road swung in my wake as I watched them through my rear view mirrors. Dragonflies flitted to the left and right before clearing a path before me and then taking off into the oak trees lining the road. I slowed down more here, taking a gravel road off the state route as my directions told me to.


To be continued...