Rumors of Their Deaths Have been Greatly Exaggerated

This picture is begging for a story.

It's creepy, atmospheric, and also rather beautiful, I think. Kind of dream-like, too. I can almost feel the seismic shudder on the warped and weathered floorboards inside that old shack of a "museum". If only someone were making movies these days with images this cool.

This sort of reminds me of when I was about ten years old riding in the back seat of the family car, after visiting my cousins way out in the sticks of Kentucky. I used to stare at the blackened treeline as we drove by, imagining them to be the gigantic silhouettes of dinosaurs. Really worked. Trees at night take on just as many fantastic, recognizable shapes as clouds do in the daytime. The brief glance of our headlights even seemed to give the resurrected saurians a spark of hallucinatory animation for a second or two, completely creeping me out. There was one ancient, immense willow tree that looked for all the world like Godzilla in profile, complete with his distinctive dorsal spines! It was pure magic.

Funny, I hadn't thought of that for many years, until I saw this picture. I wonder if kids today with their ipods and video games ever experience the same kind of thrill from merely riding in the country and looking out at the tangles of ivy and oak weaving around the dusty old gravel roads.

How sad if they don't.