“There’s one!” When we have the chance for a family road trip, I’m likely to hear this from one of my children. I consider it a surprising byproduct of dragging them too often through back roads, two-lane highways, and sometimes questionable alleys in an attempt to capture photographs. Their exclamation usually refers to some specimen of graffiti, hand-painted letters or murals on the side of a building, or retro signage they may have spotted. I guess I’ve trained their vision through experience. These days, when I suggest we should take the long way to this place or that, one of them invariably adds “so you can get some photos!” I take an odd pride in the fact that they no longer question or wonder when I say “let’s just pull off here.” I think they’ve either accepted this strange penchant or decided it doesn’t matter — maybe even embraced the pursuit by discovering something of their own. As my astute 14-year-old reminds me, “weird is wonderful.” And, I suppose that explains this latest foray into Mississippi Delta letters and numbers.
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