blacksburg, va
September 29, 07
It’s Homecoming today at VA Tech. It would probably be a big deal under normal circumstances, but the school has only recently opened back up after the shooting, and absolutely everyone is going completely mad with school spirit. Outside this (empty) library, the street is flooded with people wearing maroon and orange and walking in the same direction. I guess the stadium is south. I’ve been walking north and I’m wearing green and carrying a big green hiking bag. I am a sore thumb.
A crowd of sorority girls wearing black shirts and orange sashes that said “alpha gamma delta” split in half as I walked through. They were all giggling and they all had nice teeth and they all looked identical. I guess that was the intended effect, but why?
Speaking of sore thumbs; I began hitching again yesterday. I started on a windy rural highway in western Virginia. It was only twenty minutes before I was picked up by a country boy headed to Blacksburg. The kid produced a metal pipe made out of carburetor parts and packed a bowl with one hand while wrestling the steering wheel with the other. I saw bison and we rode along and over little streams and brooks and the evening sun came through the tree branches just right like an Alfonso Cuarón movie – except the soundtrack was Primus.
Today I stick to those same backroads as I make my way to Charlotte, NC. I have a flight to Portland booked that leaves Tuesday morning.
It’s my homecoming too.
November 24, 07 at 2:47 pm
hey, there’s something to your writing. i believe i should rip off your style of showing and not telling. i believe Kerouac had that down pat, but you still have humorous and/or verve in your writing. you should still write while your settled. days of adventure at the cheerful tortoise or cats. okay, we need to get out more, i’ll put that on the list.