TRAVELING AGAIN 9

Lesley, Texas 12 March 2011

This is the sort of subject matter that I search for as I travel through the all but forgotten parts of West Texas. The speed limit in Lesley is the same as it is outside of town -- 70 mph. There may have been all of eight buildings in the town, and only three occupied. However, this old store is such a wonderful find. So void of color except the one pump -- so representative of the town itself, void of people except for a couple of occupied houses. Nature is reclaiming the place just as nature always will. While photographing the exterior of the old cotton gin across the street a van pulls up driven by a be-jeweled, heavily made-up (complete with blue eye liner and sparkles, and hair fresh from the hair dresser. She was at least 80, I swear. She sticks her head out of the window and says in a deep west Texas accent: "What's your name?" I tell her I'm nobody, but introduce myself anyway. When she finds out I'm a college teacher, she immediately opened up and told me her history and her relationship to the town. She was born there, and currently back visiting her sister. Her sister still lived in "the blue house right over there where she was born." Told me she was a retired first grade teacher from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Being polite I talked with her about the town and her sister and....etc. Finally told her I had a plane to catch and wanted to photograph the gin before I left. But she had one more story to tell: "See that place where there us to be a sign, my sister painted it, but some bad people stole it, and now she needs to do a new one. Use to say, Lesley Gin.