Southern Pride

Middle of Nowhere Arkansas

It is a darkly overcast day, rain drizzling off and on when all of a sudden I see up ahead a dark object in the road.  Here is this guy riding along, no lights, no reflectors, no bright colored reflective clothing, not the easiest thing to see through a rain splattered windshield.  You can’t see it here but his dog his running alongside (on a leash) to the right.  He cannot move over for the rumble strip on the side of the road would rattle him senseless.  Unfortunately I hit a bump just when I clicked the shutter and cannot make out the all the wording on his sign.  It is a website to donate for breast cancer research but the rest I couldn’t make out.  

While reviewing this I noticed I happened to catch a couple of the tilting telephone poles in this shot.  I was talking with two couples from Georgia the other day and they told me to watch for the leaning poles.  These are survivors from Hurricane Katrina, the ones not blown over completely or snapped off.

I saw on my map Louisiana Purchase State Park.  I checked it out.  You drive in two miles off the highway into a swamp.  I was liking this already.  Park then walk a few hundred yards on this boardwalk deep into the swamp.  This is more than I could have ever hoped for!

  

It was so quiet except for the birds; birds making strange calls from somewhere for they were not to be seen but their sounds carried through the swamp.  The boardwalk took you to a stone monument marking the initial point from where the 1815 Louisiana Territory land survey began.  More on that later but I just had to show this much for now.  

I had the whole experience all to myself too.

 As for the Southern Pride, I realized today while driving along that I have not see one person standing on a corner holding a cardboard sign begging for money since I’ve been in the South.  In California it is a plague of them out there on every street corner.  No doubt there are more people here in the South without jobs, existing at poverty level, way more than in California but these folks have pride.