Little Worlds - A Visit and a Storm

 

Susie and Todd at Home, Guntertown, Madison County 2019

 
 

I went to visit Susie and Todd last weekend over in Laurel. The catalyst for the visit was small engine repair as Todd has a gift with saws, tillers, mowers, weedeaters and such.

But visits with Todd and Susie are always about much more than spark plugs and carburetors and this was no different. We talked at length about their recent trip to India and Europe, about Istanbul, and a drive through the French Alps for a short stay in Italy.

We talked a lot about Susie’s father, Bill Mosher, a long-time professor at Warren Wilson College, who was born in India to parents that were agricultural missionaries there. Bill took scores of students to India for cultural studies and continues to go back for extended stays every two years or so, even now at 81 years old. Susie, and often Todd, accompany him.

In my mind Bill should be a role model for all of us elders, everyone really. He’s open-minded, and adventuresome, fearless really, always ready to try new foods, meet new people, and absorb new places. He’s a wonderful photographer, also, and has an engaging manner with people that produces intimate portraits. Susie told me of a recent solo trip Bill made, where he drove around the south for a few weeks, sleeping in his car, often in Walmart parking lots, visiting small and large towns, going to art galleries, delighting in his near total anonymity, and not knowing where he would end up from one day to the next. He’s inspirational and it’s easy to understand why his students loved him.

 

Looking East from Lonesom Mountain, Maidison County, NC 2019

 

I was thinking about Bill as I left Todd and Susie’s house for the winding ride home. Down the mountain and across the Dickie bridge and then up the hill to Peachtree where I turned onto Lonesome Mountain road. While visiting, we all noticed a change in the light and the air - softer with darkening skies and the air sweeter with the distinct smell of approaching rain.

 
 

Dellie would always refer to Lonesome Mountain as Ol’ Lonesome, granting it an ominous or haunting description that was close to the truth. Especially at night, the dark, narrow road with steep turns and switchbacks, with overhanging trees and few houses and could be scary, as it was on this evening.

The rain came in sheets as I approached the top, the sky black, gusts of wind strong enough to move my truck, the road slick, no guardrails, and steep dropoffs. Ol’ Lonesome at her finest. I slowed, not only for safety and better traction, but to make photographs through the windshield, trying to capture something of this storm’s fury.

 
 

At the bottom, where Lonesome Mountain meets Hwy. 25-70, the sky lightened and opened, the road widened, signaling an end to my passage over Ol’ Lonesome. As always, I stopped at the painted rock to read its current message.

 
 
 
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Little Worlds

 

Dee Dee Norton Buckner, Sodom, 1977.

 
 

I ran into my old friend Dee Dee at the Doctor’s office in Weaverville. We see each other pretty often, mostly at the grocery store so it was good visiting with her in an unexpected setting. But seeing her reminded me of a photograph I made of her when she was not yet a teenager and I was but a very young man. I had recently seen it on a contact sheet while looking through images for a next project.

As I age, as is the case with a lot of us seniors, my memory isn’t what it used to be. People’s names are especially difficult and I struggle to remember song and book titles, or when I did specific things.

My photographs have been my saving grace in that regard. I can go back through contact sheets and prints and remember where I was, what I was doing, who I was with, the time of year, the clothes people were wearing. Memory, of course, is one of photography’s great
gifts to us.

So, when I came across this photograph of Dee Dee, it took me right back to that summer of 1977 in Sodom when I moved in with Dellie Norton, Dee Dee’s great-grandmother. Dee Dee and I saw each other often then, most every day, and the portrait took me back to who we were 42 years ago, and who we’ve become since. Good memories, hard memories, memories that make us smile, others that
make us cry.

 



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Little Worlds - Access

 

Two Women, Tucson, AZ 1972

 
 

I saw the two women from across the street from where I was standing. I wanted to make their picture. But how?

I was taking a beginning course in photography at the time and had already identified the type of photographs I wanted to make - pictures that might make a difference in the world, pictures that could be tools for social change. But I had no idea of how to make those kind of photographs.

I was a shy person and had no idea of how to approach people different from me, how to gain access to their lives. So I became adept at hiding in the bushes, stealing images with a tele-photo lens. My instructor, whose name I can’t remember, called me on it. “What are you afraid of?” He asked. “Why are you hiding?” “I don’t know,” I answered. “Perhaps myself.”

I walked across the street to the two women. I said hello and asked about them, where they lived, and who they were. They were old friends who hadn’t seen each other for awhile, They’d both lived in Tucson their entire lives and known each other for most of that time. “May I make a photograph of you?” “Of course,” they answered in unison, drawing close to each other in an expression of intimacy I couldn’t have directed, or stolen.

 
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Little Worlds - from Sodom to Marshall

 

Clinton Norton, Sodom, 1976

 

Clinton Norton, Marshall, 2019

 

When I started going up to Sodom to visit with Dellie Norton in 1975, I was initially drawn to the old people - their wrinkled and wizened faces, their knowledge, their many kindnesses - and I photographed them to the exclusion of everyone else. It was my friend John Rountree who suggested that I was missing a lot by just concentrating on the elders, focusing on a dying culture while mostly ignoring that culture’s evolution, as evidenced in its young people. It was good advice.

I first photographed Clinton when he was six years old. He was Dellie’s grandson, the youngest son of Dellie’s youngest daughter Mary, and her husband, AB. They lived right down the road from Dellie’s and Clinton and his sisters and their cousins were always around the community and at Dellie’s. I photographed them a lot. Even then, it was evident that most of the young people had inherited the music and storytelling genes. They have the gift.

Clinton lives in south Asheville now with his wife and five-year old son. He has three daughters from a first marriage. We don’t see each other often. So, I took the opportunity the other night to go to a local restaurant to hear him play with his band Shooting Creek who play a nice mix of vintage country covers. Clinton has traded his guitar for a drum kit, at least with the band, but sings and plays acoustic guitar when he does solo gigs around town.

We had a nice catch-up visit, talking about our kids, wives, work. “I’m gonna be fifty years old this July,” he said. “I’ve been doing this music thing for a long time.”

“I know you have,” I said. “I’ve got the picture to prove it.”

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