Farm, Smyth County Virginia 02, 2006 vacation. Photo By Roy Burke
Two years on it still hardly seems real Doc, that all that would be left are the logbooks and maps, photos and blog posts and memories and laughs and the many, many remembered miles we spent strutting and fretting our way across the back roads and creeks and country churchyards. A headstone in your hometown and a righteous sendoff by your friends were good, but not enough. I still grieve a little every day recalling afternoons whiled away at Ground Zero, digging deep into South African resistance music or the oeuvre of Slim Harpo, tossing off jeers and asides at the ballgame on the TV down the hall. “That’s the Cavs,” your disgusted mutter standing in for every let down anyone ever took in the gut, as time expired. So there’s this photo, from your 2006 Blue Ridge trip, an image of American Pastoral that makes me smile at the thought.
Doc’s final trusty iron horse was a Chevy Tahoe named The Hoe. In the years he invested in traveling back roads, he started with an ancient 70s Chevy Vega named Lotus Blossom, which spit oil by the quart and was not optimal for Forest Service roads. In the mid 1980s he intensified the experience with a GMC Jimmy named The Beagle. The Hoe was the apotheosis of Roy’s roadworthy education, with enough space for him to sleep in at campgrounds when he wanted, room to stow all of the critical gear needed for backwoods photography, with enough torque and tread to make it out of the occasional unpaved road too far. This is a representative example of the field-dressed Hoe, gumboots at the ready should wetlands abound.
doctor flowers redux 