TAKE ME TO YOUR RIVER
Once upon a time, I couldn’t get a job.
I mean I actually couldn’t get a job. After a string of life-altering mistakes as a young adult, I had made myself literally un-hirable. I had several charges pending - looming - rather, from run-ins with the law; the most recent of which were on back-to-back weekends with the same officers. I had a clear record - police and otherwise - of failing to learn from my own mistakes.
With a future so unsure (availability is the best ability!) potential employers were weary enough to stay away, even at 2008 Recession minimum-wage (wait, it’s still the same now - YUCK.) After I failed to get a call back from - check notes - Hardee’s, I knew I was in real trouble. I ended up with a temp service, applying for single-day placements, waking up each morning to check and see if I had a job that day or not. As a result, I took some of the shittiest gigs imaginable - I mean that literally - I once was part of a team that was tasked with cleaning out an abandoned drug house for demolition, where the water had been cut off for months - but the need for toilets had not. I will never forget how low rock-bottom looked, or smelled, for that matter.
I start there to say exactly that - I started there. The absolute bottom. I got there by my own doing, of course, but the bottom nonetheless. I didn’t get to restart at a previous checkpoint. I had to start the game over.
If you were to go back to that moment in time - a record scratch, freeze-frame of me, sledgehammer raised over drug-den toilet (You’re probably wondering how I got here) and pulled me aside to show me the following set of photos… with context..
…well I wouldn’t believe it, obviously. But if and when I did, I’d see that it’s all going to be worth it.
Not the run-ins, of course. I would run my ass right out of that, in hindsight. But the climb-back. Showing up, starting over, trying again.
It would be worth it.
You see, the context is that these pictures are from an Easter-weekend road trip; from my place in Myrtle Beach to my dad’s new home in the mountains of Western North Carolina. If you were to say that sentence to me mid-freeze frame, 17 years ago in CR, it would have sounded as foreign as Mandarin to me. What the fuck are you talking about?
Growing up I had always heard the phrase its about who you know, and not what you know. That proved itself to be true when my good friend Todd - whose sister I was working for at the temp agency - gave me a job as a dishwasher at a local pub. It was not an open position; he made room for me - he fired the previous dishwasher while I was downstairs hanging my coat before my first shift. So not only did I need this job, but I now I needed to not let Todd down after he just stuck his neck out for me like that.
So [Editor’s note: man I hate even typing this] the following night, my second shift on the job - this sounds so fucking ridiculous in hindsight - I missed my father’s wedding. To wash dishes.
But, history will show that I was [rightfully] as unwelcome a roommate as possible at the time, and we both agreed that I needed that job so I could get out of his basement. Not only did I need to be there to keep the job - I needed every dollar, including the 35 or so that I would make that night.
So I showed up - that night and every other night for thee years - moving up the line and eventually running the place before I left. Meanwhile I went back to school, graduated, and eventually found a job in my field of study, and never looked back (except for a friendly lunch date there with Mary every now and then.)
So you can look at it two ways: I missed my dad’s wedding for 35 bucks, or I missed my dad’s wedding to keep a job that saved my life. I know which way I look at it, if only for my sanity.
[Editor’s note: I missed my homie AB’s wedding for the same reason later that year. I’m sorry AB. I still think about it like once a month.]
Fast-forward to Easter Sunday 2025.
Here I am, in North Carolina, playing with my dad’s golden retrievers, in a field of flowers, on a mountain.
It hardly sounds real, even now, after all the trials and tribulations. Back then it would sound like a fairy tale.
And it kinda is! This place is as far from the Parlor City kitchen as say, Narnia, or the Land of Oz.
In fact, Western NC is so far from our hometown of Cedar Rapids, both in distance and culture, that basically any time spent there is ‘exploring’. So that’s what we do. Both on foot and by vehicle, we set out looking for new sights and sounds; photos for me, potential dog-walk routes for him. All while hoping to avoid hearing the Appalachian warning track - a click-clack and a “That’s far enough”.
So far we have steered clear.
The funny part about this morning’s explorations in particular is that it wound us up in a very unlikely spot - church.
Church is not somewhere my dad and I have been together on Easter… ever? We used to attend the ‘Sunrise Service’ at Bever Park, or sometimes Ellis, depending on what time they finally peeled my sister and I out of bed. But nothing much ever sank in - it was cold, early, there was candy to be eaten and eggs to be found. We laughed about the lack of effectiveness, even as we looked back on it this year, but admired the spirit of it regardless.
So when I pulled past a gorgeous creek that caught my eye as something that needed to be explored, I turned into a dirt parking lot adjacent and read the sign No swimming on Sundays or during baptisms.
“Take me to your river, I wanna go”
Not only did we accidentally end up at church on Easter morning, we managed to stumble onto some Holy Water. This crystal clear, glistening creek was used by the church to wash the sins off of its constituents, although apparently not today. It was late morning and the few remaining churchgoers outside gave us some looks (we didn’t burst into fire, I don’t know how they knew we hadn’t been to church in 30 years, but they were right) then ultimately moseyed on back to their vehicles and left the grounds to us. We explored up and down the creek, my dad searching for fossils, me for buckets. We rarely said much, and he even threw me Zero Dark Thirty-esque non-verbal Lets Go This Way after he spotted a secret trail. My dad is so cool.
Of course we went up there.
We eventually found an abandoned trailer up there, completely demolished except for the stone base. We found a few beer cans that ranged from new-ish to antique, and determined that no one has been there in a long time. Even still, we always kept our ears peeled for that horrifying “Click-clack.”
At Easter dinner or whatever they want to call it - it was at noon, in a barn, after all - my dad’s sister-in-law Mary says to me, “So let’s catch up”.
Sure, whatcha got? I said confidently.
Wife? She asks.
No. (She knows this. Hell, I’d probably get married here in the mountains if it were ever to happen.)
Kids? (What? Mary, be serious. I was just here at Christmas.) No, I replied.
Well… are you rich? She asks.
I pause. Mmm, no. I said.
Well then, she says, verbally dusting her hands clean, signifying that we’re done here. She’s joking of course, but I only know her just enough to know that.
Good talk! I quipped back. I was mentally in a good space (thank goodness) and I was happy to state my case.
I live on a golf course, I told her. I work for my best friend (it’s still about who you know!) I walk three blocks to work every day, in a town that has ‘Beach’ in the name. I don’t sit in traffic, I don’t worry about my job, and I don’t have to run anything by anyone, ever.
If I want to up and leave for Iceland, for example, I have to ask exactly zero people how they feel about that. I’m outta here. [Editor’s note: I did have to hire my niece to water my plants, going rate in 2023 was one Barbie but I’m sure that’s changed with inflation.]
If I want to wake up at 2:30 in the morning and light an L and watch True Lies on USA Network, with the commercials, then goddamit that’s what I’m gonna to do. [Editor’s note: OK I didn’t say that, but it is exactly what I did last night. PS. I just started a Letterboxd!]
I have my health, my job, my friends, my family and MOMENTUM.
Therefore it doesn’t matter if I have a dollar to my name - I thought about the brief pause earlier before my third ‘No’ - I wasn’t calculating numbers, adding account totals or summarizing assets - I was considering what she really meant by the question. I think it was literal at face value - a joke labeled ‘joke’. But I think - and again, I barely know her enough to know enough - what she was really asking was: well if the first two answers are no, are you at least happy?
I thought again about the smell of that crack-house that I was tasked to clean out some fifteen-plus years ago. The garbage up to my shins. Vials, needles, empties everywhere. I thought about the people that surrounded me there, and where they might be now. Which prisons, which cemeteries.
I thought about my follow-up call to Hardees on Center Point Road, and how they told me they would keep my application on file just in case things turned out for me.
With that in mind, I would like to change my answer.
Yes, Mary, I am rich as hell.
Rather than heading back east to the beach after taking off, I drove due south, a route I’d never taken before. I had another stop to make - a business one. See I had managed to make this visit a paid work trip, and all I had to do make one stop down in Mill Spring, about an hour south of my dad’s place. I zigged and zagged through the blue ridges, each corner unveiling a new and exciting view (and a Jesus billboard or five.) I drove with my camera in my lap, off-safety.
Then I as I approached the Green River, just north of Mill Spring, I lost my breath.
It was taken from me, by this sight.
I pulled the truck over so fast you’d think a pit crew was going to pop out of the bushes. I hopped out and started shooting.
Great minds think alike! I heard from the distance.
I turned to see a guy hustling over from the opposite side of the bridge.
Do you live around here or are you visiting!? I was so excited that I lost my manners. A car flew past between us, drowning my answer out. How could you just drive by this? I thought.
Great minds think alike! He repeated, holding up a Fuji mirrorless camera, now close enough to hear without yelling.
Yeah yeah, I responded, repeating my question rudely. Apparently I just had to know right now what I was looking at. I took a deep breath to calm down, and switched out of “super-Terminator-get-buckets-mode” into being a personable human being.
His name was David, he said and he was visiting from Denmark.
I’m sorry I thought you said Denmark.
I did! He said. He went on to explain that he’s from the area and is back in the states to get married in the Charlotte area this weekend. Extraordinary.
What do you do out there? I asked.
I’m a designer for LEGO!
Yo. What!? I’m in the middle of nowhere, pulled over at the same time and place as David, the LEGO designer from Denmark. Amazing.
And he was right, we did think alike. We immediately stepped over the pathetic half-gate and began to head down to the falls.
We shot and talked; about hobbies, careers, travel, and of course, photography, all over the course of just fifteen minutes or so.
At one point he says, Yeah sometimes I take the ferry over to Norway to go snowboarding.
I never do that, I thought to myself. David is so cool.
Before we wrap it up I tell him about an image I have in my head. I show him what I have in mind and hand my camera over.
Is it where you want it? He asks, gesturing to the camera.
I miss the gesture, and repeat the vision for the shot.
No, I mean settings-wise, he responds.
Ohh, yeah I’m on auto-everything right now I don’t have time to mess with that shit, I reply before turning around to sprint to my spot.
In hindsight, I realize that to some photographers, this is akin to telling a fellow painter “Yeah I don’t really care which brush I use.”
But to each their own, and I do a lot of my work ‘in post’. As long as the raw shot is “good enough” I feel confident that I can make it look the way I want it to in Lightroom.
And let me tell you, this is the way I wanted it to look.
David understood the assignment.
I took a few of him in action in return. I’ve already sent them his way and he was very appreciative, and told me that I have a “shutter buddy in Denmark”. Man, don’t tempt me. Remember, I don’t have to run it by anyone.
After we parted ways I continued toward Mill Spring, as it turned out, not the town itself. To my surprise our client lived in Bright’s Creek, just outside of Mill Spring, which happens to be one of the most premier gated communities in all of NC. I explained to them why I was exactly one photoshoot late (I got lost, duh) and had a really pleasant meeting with them.
As I left, I got actually lost, and saw how the other half lived. Million dollar plots, multi-million dollar spreads. Multiple horse stables, a country club straight out of a movie scene, 18 holes in the mountains. I pulled away and thought about Mary’s last question. Well, are you rich? If she meant it in a Bright’s Creek type of way, then good Lord - I am definitely, definitely, definitely not rich.
But ‘rich’ is subjective. It’s about where you started, and where you are.
And I am a long, long way from that Center Point Road Hardee’s.
I wonder if they still have my application on file. I feel like things turned out.
God Bless and Happy Easter.
all of them!?