Peter Behrens's Blog, page 542

America the Beautiful & Walt Whitman & Larry Levis

Whitman:         “I say we had better look our nation searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease.” -Democratic Vistas
“Look for me under your bootsoles.”
On Long Island, they moved my clapboard houseAcross a turnpike, & then felt so guilty theyNamed a shopping center after me!
Now that I’m required reading in your high schools,Teenagers call me a fool.Now what I sang stops breathing.
And yetIt was only when everyone stopped believing in meThat I began to live again—First in the thin whine of Montana fence wire,Then in the transparent, cast-off garments hungIn the windows of the poorest families,Then in the glad music of Charlie Parker.At time now,I even come back to watch youFrom the eyes of a taciturn boy at Malibu.Across the counter at the beach concession stand,I see you hot dogs, Pepsis, cigarettes-My blond hair long, greasy, & swept backIn a vain old ducktail, deliciously Out of style. And no one notices.Once I even came back asme,An aging homosexual who the Tilt-a-WhirlAt county fairs, the chilled paint on each gondolaChanging color as it picked up speed,And a Mardi Gras tattoo on my left shoulder.A few of you must have seen my photographs,For when I looked back,I thought you caught the meaning of my stare:
Still water,Merciless.
A Kosmos. One of the roughs.
And Charlie Parker’s grave outside Kansas CityCovered with weeds.
Leave me alone.A father who’s outlived his only child.
To find me now will cost you everything.
-Larry Levis, from his collection "Winter Stars"

American Houses, Colorado Springs

2 Jeep COE's

Corona Street Garage, Colorado Springs. AL was here back in October, but the COE's weren't.

1972 K/5 Blazer

Career army. Bought the Blazer  brand-new in '72, just back from his fourth Viet Nam tour. The factory color was called 'Ochre". The truck's totally original, except the gas cap and a four-barrel carb. "All the ding, dents and deer blood, man--that is my history. Know what I'm saying? Why would I want to paint it?" 

1970 F-250, Colorado Springs

Chevrolet Custom 10s, Colo. Springs

1972 Chevrolet Suburban, three-door

1974 Ford F100 Ranger XLT, part 2

                                                        image ©2013 Jarrod McCabe
This (below) is the truck I posted last week, still for sale at Ed's Automotive here in Colorado Springs. I took a couple of shots outside to give you a better sense of the truck's gestalt. Those wheels are certainly ugly, and the tires too small, but this truck might clean up well. Check the earlier post for more info. I just met another old truck guy in the Downtown Barbershop here in COS. We agreed that it was just much more fun to buy basically solid, undistinguished old western trucks for a couple grand, clean them up, tune them up, learn about carburetors and such, and just plain drive 'em--than it was to buy/drive anything newer. Driving them is the key: $50,000 trailer queens don't interest me much, even if I could afford them, which I can't. Hell, you can own a fleet of the sort of old trucks I like for the price of one Kia.

This truck reminds me of the orange Ford pickup (it was an F-250) that photographer Jarrod McCabe drove from Montana to Massachusetts last winter. See some of those images (below). You can track that epic in a series of AL posts starting here. One of the image from that trip is the cover of Travelling Light, a collection of my short stories which House of Anansi brings out--Canadian spelling and all--in May 2013.
                                                     ©2013 Jarrod McCabe                                                 ©2013 Jarrod McCabe
                                                        ©2013 Jarrod McCabe

1949 or 1950 GMC 1/2 ton pickup

Saw this truck last time I was in Colorado Springs and posted it. Saw it again this morning & had to stop again. As my people up north say,"Beauty, eh?"

Chrissy Mason "North of Mendocino"

 





All images ©2013 Chrissy Mason. More up at Constant-Never here.