(See what I am saying?)

THE OHIO FACTOR #2:

Gate 33B, LAX international, Los Angels, California: "Sir, I need to see your ID please." the airline employee at the boarding gate asked me.

I pulled out my drivers license and gave it to him.

"Athens, Ohio?" he said to me. "I grew up in Lancaster. Man, i used to go down there and party all the time. "

Places out there.

-for more images of places, visit: www.greenappleslingshot.com/gallery/america

THE OHIO FACTOR #1:

Main Street, Carpenteria, California:I walk out of a ice cream shop in Capenteria, as sleepy and sought after town hanging on the cost of california 15 miles south of Santa Barbara. I am parallel parked in front of a musty bronze mercedes sedan.

"Excuse me." a very tan man said to me as he got out of the sedan.

"I noticed your license plate. I see you are from ohio. I grew up in trotwood. It's near Dayton" he continued.

"Yeah, i know." I said back to the tan man standing in front of his musty bronze mercedes sedan.

Unspoken encounters on the open road.

The heat rose off the plane of space dividing the texas sky from the texas sand. the line dividing them was blurred by the overexposure of light and heat, making the scrub brushes in the distance look like styrofoam melting in a campfire, like nauseous fumes rising from a muffler on some dirty piece of heavy machinery idling in a junkyard, like driving across west texas in the middle of august.

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through the windshield the 2 planes of sky and sand kept stretching forward into the crevice of white heat on the horizon. all 4 windows were open, and as the speedometer flexed itself below the 100 mph mark, the wind tore through the jeep like at a weather station on top of mt. washington; and, had we anything to say to each other, it would have been swallowed up and blown away.

as it was, we both stared into the dreamy horizon and let the sound of the wind keep us from thinking, or at least thinking out loud. she kept staring straight ahead, and kept both hands on the wheel. I leaned back and rested my arm on the door. as the dashed white line stretched from the horizon and scrolled below the car like a metronome in morse code. a dark spot in the road began to solidify from the milky heat on the horizon. still miles ahead, i began to wonder how long it would take us to meet it. it was the only thing in our entire view not symmetrically laid out before us in our windshield composition. as the white line scrolling below us bisected the scene, the dark spot became closer, and there was no doubt she saw it. it was so obvious i didn't even look her way to acknowledge the anomaly.

she drove ahead with both hands on the wheel. i sat beside her, with and empty bottle of Shiner Bach in the cup holder, an empty box of raisins, and complete windblown silence between us.

as the dark spot came close enough, i could see it was an armadillo. when i say it was, i mean it was. a few days ago. before an 18 wheeler laid it down and strewn it out on the asphalt below it's mud-flaps. the ones, i imagined, with the silhouette of a well endowed lady sitting with extremely good posture.

it was dead and bloated beyond the size of a basketball, and as i tried to reassemble it's anatomy in my head, - for i have never seen an armadillo alive - it passed below the front of the car in a blur.

still, not a word was spoken. i knew she saw it. she had to. and i had profe, because she, at the last minute swerved, i think to straddle the dead armadillo in the middle of the road.

as it were, perhaps a brief gust of wind across the plains of texas, perhaps the sway bars on the jeep just weren't made to handle those speeds. whatever it was, i believe it was an accident:

the front right tire bumped up. i heard a pop. she kept both hands on the wheel. the wind roared in across the empty bottle of shiner bach in the cup holder, and the empty box of raisins.

my arm, was still resting on the door. my underarm out to my elbow, and back to my wrist, was hanging out of the car. just above and behind the front right tire as it skipped over the dead armadillo.

the curb weight of a jeep cherokee is 3028 lbs. i am not sure how much gas was in the tank, or how much luggage we had in the back, but at or around 100 mph., she ran the jeep right over the dead, bloated armadillo. the air temperature was almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature on the shadeless black asphalt in texas in august had to be reaching the boiling point.

the armadillo popped open and exploded under the force of the jeep, sending a warm, clear liquid up and across my arm.

i jumped in surprise as my and pulled my arm inside. i looked desperately for something to wipe it off with, resorted to wiping it off with utah from the page the atlas, and hung it back out in the 100 mph. heat to dry off.

never a word was spoken. she never took a hand off the wheel. the needle never fell below the 100 mph. mark. when she finished laughing silently in the wind, and i rolled up my t-shirt sleeve, we both continued to stare ahead into the white heat rising off the plane of space dividing the texas sky from the texas sand.

The median in life

we were sinking into the south and my back was wet with sweat between the heat and the car seat. sitting shotgun the afternoon sun fell in my side and with all the windows open wide it was too loud to talk so instead i thought.

I watched the northbound lanes of I-59 begin to back up and crawl to a halt. we watched with pity at the the cars and trucks farther down the road that sped ahead unknowingly into a traffic jam. it was a strange and comfortable confidence of knowing what they did not and also some new version of sadness of knowing what was to happen to them. As the cars and trucks passed us heading north, there was a strange feeling like we could see into their future. we had seen their trouble ahead.

suddenly i realized that they too had seen ours. and that maybe they looked across the green median of I-59 and saw our future and now saw us with the same pity as we did them.

sitting shotgun as the afternoon sun fell in my side and with all the windows open wide, i suddenly felt a world of hurt coming my way. i felt vulnerable and ignorant and about to suddenly come to a crashing halt. my whole world felt like it could be a 4 lane dived highway in southwest alabama and for the moment i was alive with all the windows down moving fast, with no way to know what was ahead for me.

and right there i realized you can't go both directions, and while I may know what lies ahead for some, it is only because it lies in my past. i can never know what will happen for me because it is my own direction and i have yet to be there. and those who may know have their own directions and their own journey ponder and they are always traveling in an opposite direction as me. suddenly i saw the great catch 22 of the world played out southbound lanes on I-95 in southwest alabama. suddenly the levity of the world flew past at 80 mph as i sat shotgun as the afternoon sun fell in my side and with all the windows open wide. i only caught a glimpse for my for a split second as it was explained to me though the laws of space and time and 4 lane divided highways.

i thought about what lies ahead for me and my journey and began to prepare for strong possibility of much more than a traffic jam to come my way.

in interstate driving, you only know your past. the other lanes only know your future. and nobody knows what will happen to themselves next. unlike interstate driving, however, life has no CB radios. at best, you have a good navigator sitting beside you to help you along the way.

Nashville, Tennessee.

"fuck nashville."

he was leaning into my left ear and perched on the bar stool in such a way that it looked like he was about to melt off the bar into a puddle of warm beer and dust on the dirty tiled floor. he smelled like he already had.

i had been in town long enough to park my car across the street and stop by hatch show print. when they closed, we walked up the street and in the door onto the barstools. around me 4 decades of country music was yellowing and stained and falling of the walls like sunburned skin.

it had been about 15 minutes since we arrived. Leanne couldn't wait to show me nashville. i couldn't wait to be shown.

on my right, she was smiling bright and white among the old yellowed photographs and lazy neon lights. the sun began to set and shown low and quiet through the front door casting shadows on the dirty tiled floor and showing the dust on the lazy neon lights.

in my left ear:

"I'm gonna pull my damned bus right outta this town."
the bartender put budweisers in front of both of us. his elbows looked like they were melting into the bar top.

"hey man."
"you got a cigarette?"

on my right she sat like bright and clean like carved from a roman statue. behind us the band began to play. the older ladies began to sway like older ladies do. everyone sang the words to the songs. except for the melting man on barstool on my left.

"played pedal steel for George Strait. until yesterday."
"we got a $10,000 fine at the hotel. now the tour's off."

by now he was on another budweiser and his grey teeth began to melt into his chin. it was getting harder and harder to understand him. but his mouth kept moving. the band played Dixie Land Delight. the sun show low through the front door and cast shadows of the swaying older ladies. everyone was singing every word to every song.

"hey man."
"got a cigarette?"

by the third beer he ordered the bartender grimaced and look apologetically at me. on my right leanne was smiling and waiting on our food to be delivered from across the street. she was singing every word to every song. now the dirty floor was covered in people dancing down the length of bar.

"you wanna kick some ass?"
"you and me. let's kick this town's ass."

now he was drinking my beer. leanne took it out of his hand. his legs were dripping down the chrome bar stool leg and his eyelids had fallen off his forehead and complete covered his eyes.

"hey ma."
"got a cigarette?"

the sun had set below the building across the street and the afternoon light had flattened out to warm orange glow. it floated in across the sunburned and peeling walls. on my right leanne was laughing and singing bright among dusty and yellowed bar. on my left the bouncer came and drug yesterdays pedal steel guitar player out the door. he was slumped over sound asleep like a dead houseplant wilting onto the tiled floor.

the bouncer helped him out the door into the pale orange light that crept over the rooftops across the street. i watched him stumble past the bar window and suddenly the people in fanny packs and nashville t-shirts standing in the door way all looked down the street and laughed. one boy held up his sony handy cam and began recording.

I walked to the front and looked down the street. the man had finally melted into a dusty drunk puddle, flat on his back in the middle of the sidewalk. and the tourists were there to take the pictures on their way into the bar.

There are two sides to country music. sometimes they both can be as close to you as a barstool on either side of you. as the band played "Friends in Low Places" i looked around at everyone. the whole bar was dancing and everyone was singing every word to every song. outside on Broadway, the sun shone on a drunken dusty puddle lying flat on his back alone. for some the romantic meaning is made by the song itself, and for others it is a mean reality made for others to sing and sway along to it. and usually the true meaning is removed by the delayed cycle of record labels and songwriters and producers and backing bands and studio sessions and multi-tracked overdubs and luck and a really good PR agent to get from the mean reality to the romantic radio friendly sing along song. but sometimes, the whole process can be seen all in one moment at 5:00 p.m. at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville Tennessee.

*At 11:30 that night, we returned downtown. a Nashville city police officer had a 6 cell mag light shining into the bushes 1 block down from Tootsie's. the police officer was trying belligerently in vain to wake him up and send him and his bus out of town.