Back In The Day

Do you remember back in the day when color was king? When you drove down the highway, with your Dad at the wheel, and you passed cars and trucks in all shapes and colors. There were pink Cadillacs and red Dodge Chargers and blue Ford Fairlanes. Remember the Sixties when turquoise was en vogue.

Do you remember rolling down the car window and hanging your arm out to adjust the driver's side mirror. Do you remember steering wheels, when you needed a muscle relaxer after a long drive, long before power steering and cruise control were en vogue. Do you remember when air conditioning meant rolling down the car windows with your hair blowing in the breeze.

Do you remember the Buick with its huge round headlights and big 'ol bumpers and the Ford Fairlane with its fins on the trunk. Do you remember when there was no such thing as anti-lock brakes or cruise control or electronic door locks or emission control or fog lights or tinted windows.

If you remember these things, then you know, wisdom comes with age. I believe we have lived in the best of times. Every day we are reminded of so many uncertainties like nuclear war and terrorism, mass murders and school shootings. But remember, we are the lucky ones because we remember a simpler time, a better time. I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend here in the States and a great weekend across the ponds. We, here in the South, are in for a whole lot of rain from a tropical depression which I believe they are calling Alberto. Heavens.

I captured these images two years ago in late Summer on a very hot, humid August day at Old Car City in Cartersville, Georgia. If memory serves me well, I don't believe I've ever featured these images in a prior post, but if I have forgive me. ENJOY!

Vintage Old Car City USA!

There is no accounting for taste and when it comes to my taste, I have a slight affinity for 'vintage'. If you ever find yourself wandering the highways just northwest of Atlanta, Georgia, you simply have to pay a visit to Old Car City USA.

Old Car City USA has 4,000 vintage cars dating from 1972 back. I kid you not when I say there are 34 acres of vintage cars or to put a different way, six miles of vintage cars. The beauty of it is, this place only sits about a half mile off I-75 in White, Georgia. CBS News Sunday Morning did a feature story on Old Car City back a few years ago. You can actually do a search online via You Tube and watch it if you like.

Everything about this vintage car city screams decaying, molding, dilapidated and slowly being reclaimed back to the Earth from which it came. There were strings of hub caps and stacks of car doors. There was even a huge row of old bicycles and an old ambulance and single engine airplane toward the front entrance. Everywhere one looked car doors were ajar, truck doors were ajar, the doors were ajar from visitors taking photos of the interiors, which by the way, were also decaying.

While my visit was brief having arrived late in the day, I had to cut it short, as it never occurred to me that before you go into a dilapidated graveyard of automobiles that are rusting and molding away, I needed to apply bug spray. Hence, I found myself getting ate up alive, and while I'm getting ate up alive walking back to the entrance, I'm running news stories through my head about the Zika Virus. Normally, I am amply prepared for my treks, but this day I forgot one important thing, bug spray.

This 'Off the Beaten Path' journey took me back to by gone days of the old Buick my Dad used to pile us into every Friday and off we'd go to the country to my Uncle Lee's Farm, where we would spend the weekend wading in the creek and running through the fields of tobacco and such.

The iconic name plates displayed on the vehicles whether they be leaning deftly due to time warn days or displayed perfectly surrounded by rusty, decaying metal were so cool. But the really really cool thing I loved the most were the fins on some of the old cars. This one in particular was rusting beautifully. Almost as though it knew it was going to be a masterpiece for a photographer's eye. God how I miss the look of the old cars. They had style, real style.

One of my favorite images from my brief visit to this end of the line 'vintage car graveyard' is this rusting red 1955 Plymouth Belevdere. If I squint my eyes just so I can envision one of these on the highways years ago, but seriously I was born in 1955 and the images I conjure up are probably just my imagination. Still so querky looking.

It bears mentioning here before I leave you in the midst of this decaying post, that I will have another post with more pics sometime soon. Oh, the stories these cars could tell if only they could talk! And least I forget, photographers from all over the world travel to Old Car City USA just to photograph the dilapidated cars with their Georgia Pine needles slowly reclaiming the ground they sit on. And to think you thought I had nothing new I could pull out of my hat. And what do I do, but go visit a decaying field of metal objects shaped in strange sizes and shapes covered in Pine needles and peeling pieces of paint layers. The lengths I go to. ENJOY!