FREESTYLING

Serendipity, Summerfield, NC

Today’s rappers consider freestyling the art of taking a subject and then just rolling with the flow to activate a conscious stream of verbiage that rhymes as you go along. Writing a blog sort of works that way too--generally without the rhyming. If you’ve ever watched the popular American Picker television show, the guys will take off freestyling through the countryside until they spot a likely homestead that has lots of interesting looking old and rusting objects scattered about the premises. I realized that’s sort of how I go about discovering interesting images to photograph on a retirement day that suddenly presents itself with enough time to just set off in no particular direction in search of anything that catches my eye.

Today I was riding the ridges of the Carolina countryside on a rather overcast fall day with a Starbucks in hand and a chill in the air and not seeing much of interest. As I approached one of the very few stop lights in the small community of Summerfield, I decided to turn right instead of staying the course I was travelling at the time. And there right in front of me was the very definition of serendipity. I came into full view of an eclectic old barn that was weathered and worn with those old character lines etched in every piece of exposed wood. But some creative soul had inserted two very colorful panels in a broken window and door that made my day. It’s a one-of-a-kind piece of Americana that could be appreciated by someone with a camera that’s freestyling down a lonesome road on a gloomy late fall afternoon in the middle of nowhere to go and nowhere to be.

And so I took the road less traveled and it made all the difference.