Team Wet Dog

southern magic

There is a magic in the South. Ask anyone who's lived here for any length of time, and if you can find the right question you'll get the same answer.

There are things that happen in the South - in rural areas, in places where a field and a highway are the only things that seem to exist - things that happen which seem right and logical at the time but which are absurd from any other moment and place.

Part of this, I think, is age. The South has just been around longer, and has developed in certain ways. Not everything about the region is good, of course, but not everything about any region is. The American South has its share of baggage, missteps, atrocities and shames.

But, there is a certain magic. A certain weirdness. 

Just over the North Carolina-Virginia border on Highway 85, you can see this place and this sign. It seems to be an old gas station on a seldom-used access road. "Innovation Health Club" is just so at odds with the scene that it's absurd.

"All Girl Staff," in smaller letters, is one of those things you can only shake your head at and smile.

On trips to Carrboro and Chapel Hill earlier this year, we passed the "Innovation Health Club," each time wishing we had time to stop and check out the deserted building. The third time, in no rush, we passed it, circled back, exited, missed it, backed the wrong way down an interstate ramp, reversed onto an access road and finally came face to face with this amazing building.

The photograph, of course, does not do the scene justice. But this is certainly part of that Southern magic, one of those inexplicable remnants that, apparently, made sense at a certain time and place.

— Robert

(9/10/07) 
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