Some Random Febuary Photos...

...for the sake of a month not abandoned, while left behind.

Back to Bragg

Not in order, almost in reverse order really, recent shots of leaving Florida in the early morning hours and driving north to Ft. Bragg. Though not really that far away, North Carolina feels like a world away from Florida. Funny that I say that after spending most of last year in Iraq. One could say - close to home is still NOT home.

Clouds clear on Bragg Boulevard as I come into the last couple miles before reaching post.

A couple of Fayetteville.



This is Womack Army Medical Center. I usually work in one of the associated clinics at Ft. Bragg. Everyday usually requires a trip to WAMC for one reason or another.

In South Carolina, near the state line, the historic NY/Florida I-95 mid-point, "South of the Border" . It's still there. How they afford to keep it open I have no idea. With all the lights they run at night the electric bill must be huge.

Georgia.

I-295, near I-95, on the northend, about 0600.

Fayetteville NC

I've come to a point where I've realized, North Carolina's OK, and in spite of a crash course on F.V.vice, on terms that I did not expect or enjoy, this town's ok. As with everything, it's a matter of perspective. Just because I haven't shaken off my youthful tendencies for short-sighted foolishness, it's no fault of this Carolina town situated between the coastal and mountain attractions.


I've found plenty of scenery to go with my continuing photography hobby. Downtown has enough to make me miss St. Augustine, and Gainesville Florida, where I'm from, but also plenty enough to make me curious and interested in the local scene, here, between Wilmington and Ashville.


There's plenty downtown, from Husky Hardware to Rude Awakening. Husky H. is a bar with excellent food and in-house brews, whereas RA is a perfect little downtown coffee shop, both with WiFi, even as I write this.



The long shadows at dusk near this common colder solstice. We pretend Chrismas means something more than commercialism and mundane group think, but the fact remains, the strip(s) of strippers and strip clubs. All blocks within blocks of family attractions, but our hours fade, so does the landscape, and this is our America. It's not the fault of Fayetteville, not the fault of MTV. Blame it on Desperate Housewives or Reality TV, Bush or Obama, America has changed. No matter if you prefer CNN, or Fox, our constitution has changed. Our better documents collect dust. Our youth are wasted on the younger. America, 2010.

Giving Thanks, From Fayette'nam

The following account has been toned down (28NOV09), and subsequently more coherent than it was a few days ago when I posted it, on Thanksgiving. It took me almost a month to come to a point where I felt like writing about the incident, and in the original version my emotions surfaced. A good thing to get out of one's system, but not to leave as a lasting public document, viewable to the world.

Strange to think, for a couple of days, how though I was safer in Iraq. I came to Ft. Bragg with a mix of expectations, but I didn't expect to get carjacked - shot - and stabbed in this small city outside the U.S. Army's "Center of the Military Universe." This was far outside my expectations in spite of my fellow ex-N.C. soldiers at Ft. Carson CO giving me warnings before I left for home on the east coast, "be careful in 'Fayett'Nam' and '...stay off the strip.'" Now I ask - "what part of Fayetteville isn't the F'k'n' strip!?" Miles and miles of "strip" in this "conservative" area. I asked in one establishment why being a customer required a membership. "Cuz of the government, you know, fees and taxes." Sounds conservative a la cart to me. Conservative used to mean conservative use of government, now the word tends to apply more to social issues and a conflict results.

Fayetteville North Carolina, a place that would, by the mouth of the average church going local, consider the liberal big cities to be sinful satanic hubs. All the while Friday nights are big here, and Saturday nights are a close third to any given weekday night as the average 6 day patron has to make it to church on time. This is the only place on earth where I've seen on the signs outside retail shops, "Dancer Discount" along with the more common, "Military Discount."

I've had poor experiences with the locals in regular interactions as well. For example, as I bought groceries at a local store here recently, the cashier asked me as she rung up my reusable $1.99 Green Grocery Bags, paper or plastic? This is not just an indicator of a single person's lack of insight, but moreover an alarm to the lack of awareness in the general population. I was apparently the only person who ever bought the reusable grocery bag at her register.

Growing up near Daytona Beach, which I had always considered the seediest place on earth, with the highest homeless person per block ratio, at least in my experience, I thought these warnings about a little place in North Carolina to be the words of country folk. I often considered my fellow small town soldier, no matter the rank or combat experience, to be much less seasoned in the ways of street people and the like than myself.

I found myself lost, on the south side of Fayetteville, the same day I picked up my vehicle after it was recovered and repaired, I stopped inside a convenient store and asked for directions toward Bragg. The woman behind the counter quipped, "Jus' keep goin' strait!" Indeed. I asked for details on "strait," and with aggravation she obliged, "...strait up 301!" N? S?E?W?!! WTF!

But my perceptions have always been a bit outside of reality as well. Of course, just as it is for everyone, each of us, singular and lost from time to time. As close as I may ever get to truth, I find again and again how un-bespeckled within, and short-sighted I am. Dare I be critical of the locals when I'm the one who let himself be suckered into a violent carjacking, at 36 y.o.a., and fresh back from Iraq? But the sun comes up. I pull on my trousers. We go to work. You live to see another day. One gives thanks. From Bragg N.C. giving thanks, on Thanksviving, as things could have been worse in recent times past. A long road home, away from home, wherever that is anymore.