Dinosaurs and Ghosts

Last weekend P.N. and J.J.P. and I drove out to Portage County to try and find an old amusement park that I could photograph while J.J.P. sketched.

The last time I saw the place was during the winter of 2002. Flanking the entrance were two large purple and yellow plaster dinosaurs partially hidden by weeds and snow. The park appeared to have been abandoned years ago and even after I moved away I still wondered about the place. I stumbled upon it while driving out to do interviews with a gravedigger acquaintance of mine.

It was at one of these cemetaries that I found a shivering, half-starved but sprightly cat. It followed the photographer and I around the graveyard, sticking its paws down rodent holes and trotting at our heels.

I hemmed. I hawed.

If it follows us back to the car, we'll take it with us, I told the photographer.

We tried to pretend our leisurely gait and pausing to look behind us wouldn't constitute out-and-out coaxing.

Once the car heater kicked into gear, the kitten curled up on my passenger's lap and promptly fell asleep.

Three years and many vet bills later, my cat is one of the only things I still have from those days. Despite living one county over, my time in Kent feels like a strange dream, a place too far away to go back to. But when I do cross the Portage County line, I get a mild case of the heebie-jeebies.

Last Sunday, as the three of us drove further and further into the countryside, with no dinosaurs in sight (save the rotting hulks of American-made autos), the feeling was pandemic.

Currently spinning:
Sleater-Kinney ~ Call the Doctor