Nowheresville

Kearney, Nebraska, 1999

I needed a place to sleep. A road trip to Colorado Springs, a visit to my eldest and a chance for a weekend of photography in the Rockies. It seems like these Mid-Nebraskan cities are painted on the landscape, everything is so flat. On the edge of town was a small shopping center, the last outpost of civilization before the prairie resumed. I caught a movie at the multiplex (Never Been Kissed) then headed to my anonymous hotel room.

Ten years later I ran into a guy I used to play baseball with when we were both in elementary school. He was still active at 60, still looked great, and he told me about the tournament he had recently played in. In Kearney.

There's a lot of flat out there; a lot of bisected planes, if one were of the geometric persuasion. And the sun is swallowed up by the horizon as it goes down, just like the ocean.