Pictures from Windows

In February or March of each year my father and I usually discuss some kind of trip. Sometimes I will offer an idea—a city or a park or even a region—and sometimes my father will. We rarely disagree as he will do anything with his children and I will do anything that’s already paid for. But each year we’re asked by friends and family (and always my mother) that same question Sherwood Anderson asked the New Yorker down in Selma. “Why Tuscon? Why El Paso? Why Midland, Texas?” And our answer is always the same as his: “I don’t know. I just bought a ticket.” Of course it’s never quite so simple. We always feel confident for some reason that the trip will be of interest. Likely it’s because we don’t go to West Texas expecting to find a resort—although we have found them. But on our family trips we often find the most enjoyment while we’re in the car and on the move. Half of my pictures, subsequently, are often taken out of windows. Redford, Texas: taken by my sister from the car Considering the outdoorsman that my dad it might sound strange to spend so much time inside. But the mode of traveling he has taught me leaves me feeling similarly to Anderson and all the other writers. And likewise, it must sound strange that the most memorable parts of the trips I’ve taken are often the backroads we’ve taken and the poverty we’ve seen. Shafter, TX will always stand out in my mind—an unincorporated town of 26 that consists mostly of an abandoned silver mine and a church. The median income for a household in that county is $19,860 and 36% of the county’s population (7,304) lives below the poverty line. Redford, TX was the nearest town to where we stayed on our Big Bend trip. The town banks the Rio Grande and the Mexican border and the median income is $15,417 per household with 83.8% of the general population (132) and 100% of those under eighteen years-old living below the poverty line. What was remarkable was again what Anderson noticed about these communities. Besides its harsh and arid reality, the landscape was absolutely stunning. There was natural beauty among these simple towns like I have never seen before. It ought to have been “America’s garden spot.” Louisiana Last spring I met up with my parents and my brother in New Orleans wherefrom we traveled through the bayou. The most memorable part of that trip, like the Texas trip one year previous, was the drive back to New Orleans from a plantation we toured an hour up the Mississippi. While we had hurried down the freeway to get there, we used side roads adjacent to the river to get back. In many of those towns I saw poverty unlike anything I had seen. Yet what was remarkable was the lushness of this land abutting the Mississippi and a remarkable quality of life that made this drive both deeply moving and unsettling at once, seeing people who live with nothing more contentedly than I have lived with lots.

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