A week ago I stumbled across an auto graveyard hidden in a patch of urban woodland, all but invisible to passersby. I had a half-hour free, and my camera was in my bag, so I decided to do a bit of exploring. Here’s what greeted me as I turned my back on the asphalt:

The copse where I found the derelict cars comes alive with birdsong in spring. On this day, though, no birds sang. A few dried leaves rustled in the breeze, but that was all, apart from the distant drone of traffic on the state highway. I once worked as a geologist, supporting a team of archaeologists who were engaged in documenting various “cultural resources” threatened by proposed highway projects, and those resources included quite a few informal dumps. But I’d never encountered anything to equal this. And yet, with the exception of the abandoned cars and trucks themselves, the woodland was remarkably clean. There was none of the surface litter that defaces most quasi-public spaces in northern New York. But I had to watch where I stepped. Cinder blocks and car parts lay half-concealed beneath the thin carpet of duff, and the resulting hummocks made speedy progress all but impossible.

So I crept along cautiously, moving from one rusting hulk to the next, soaking up the atmosphere. In truth, it really did have the feel of a graveyard, part resting place and part memento mori, a poignant reminder that, notwithstanding the promises of advertising copywriters, nothing lasts forever. Each abandoned wreck had once been some family’s pride and joy, but every winter took its toll and the showroom shine soon faded, never to be restored.

This was a truly egalitarian memorial, too. Every class and kind of vehicle was represented, from utilitarian pickup to luxury sedan. But all were equal now. The stereo speakers were silent, the tinted glass pockmarked and crazed. And what use electric windows here?

Still, a few of the wrecks had managed to achieve immortality of a sort, their serviceable parts scavenged to prolong the lives of other newer, cars and trucks. Now only the picked bones of the donors remained.

Yet even in death some skeletons retained an odd alertness, poised as if ready to take their long-gone owners on one last ride:

For a while I wandered from wreck to wreck, getting no real sense of the graveyard’s true extent. Eventually, however, I found my way to a vantage point. Only then did I realize how much more there was to see…

…and how much had already disappeared into the soil. In time, in ten years or a hundred, nothing will remain above ground, and passersby will be left to wonder,

But neither the trees, nor the grass, nor the songbirds will bother to answer. After all, they are part of larger story, and they have much longer memories.

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When we’re behind the wheel, it’s easy to fall into “Don’t look, don’t see” mode. A car enwombs driver and passenger alike, insulating them from the many of the sights, sounds, and smells of the world around them. Not long ago a driver ran down a cyclist, dragging her several hundred yards. The driver continued on without stopping, thinking, she later said, that she’d just hit a deer or a dog. Only when she got home and discovered a bicycle lodged under her SUV did it dawn on her that she’d struck a human being. (The cyclist died of her injuries, by the way, but the driver wasn’t charged. Apparently, this was a mistake any driver could make.)

Only a deer. Only a dog. Only a cyclist. Life is cheap on America’s highways, and the open road is littered with the bodies of the ones who didn’t get away. Not many cyclists are left where they fall, of course. We still have enough respect for human life to collect their remains, if not enough to prosecute their killers. (A mistake anyone could make.) But our other victims mostly remain on the asphalt where they died, food for crows and other scavengers. Which is, after all, only the natural order of things. Still, it’s hard not to be struck by the evidence of the automobile’s power to kill and main.

Unless, of course, you choose not to see. But this easy option isn’t open to cyclists. We can’t help but see what lies on the road we ride on. And if the dead have lain in the sun for very long, we can smell them, too.

Which means that many cyclists only know our rarer and more elusive species of animals because they’ve seen them lying dead on the highway—or struggling to get across a busy road before a speeding car crushes them beneath its wheels. How many riders have seen a snapping turtle anywhere except on the highway? Or a living shrew, darting in and out of the deep forest duff, in its never-ending quest for enough food to fuel a heart that beats hundreds of times a minute?

Me? I’m one of the lucky ones. I know these animals when they’re “at home.” But I still see far more of them dead on the road before me. Maybe you’ve never made the acquaintance of a shrew. OK. Here’s one that didn’t make it:

Or maybe you’ve never seen a weasel going about his business, sinuous and sleek, patrolling the rocky shore of a river or hunting under the pines? Well, if you haven’t, it’s not really a surprise. Weasels move fast, and they hunt by stealth and guile. They’re not easy to see. But this one—a least weasel—had no trouble holding still for my camera:

Then again, he didn’t have much choice, did he?

And what about birds? Cedar waxwings aren’t rare, and while they prefer wild fruit, they’re sometimes seen at feeders. But they’re shy. It’s hard to get near them. I didn’t have any trouble getting close to this one, though:

He died in my hands after being struck by a car.

Don’t get me wrong. I like riding. I really do. But each ride adds to an already overlong list of absent friends. And each small body that I scoop up and carry off the road to some grassy patch on the verge reminds me just how vulnerable we all are. A fumbled cell phone, a flirtatious tickle in the ribs, the cry of a colicky child in the back seat… Too many drinks, too many hours without sleep, too many pills,… And then it’s Did I hit something back there? Must have. Helluva bang. Still, it was probably just a dog or a deer. Too late to stop now. Couldn’t do anything, anyway. I’ll check out the damage when I get home. Have to keep the wife (or the boyfriend or the boss or the insurance) from finding out, too. Damn!

Meanwhile, a few miles back, something unseen drags itself slowly and painfully toward the refuge offered by nearest roadside ditch.

Caught in the center of a soundless field
While hot inexplicable hours go by
What trap is this? Where were it’s teeth concealed?
You seem to ask. …
        I’m glad I can’t explain
Just in what jaws your were to suppurate:
You may have thought things would come right again
If you could only keep quite still and wait.

      Philip Larkin, “Myxomytosis”

How many of us take the time to look beyond the beauty strip? And how many of us really want to? After all, it can be downright painful to see what lies just outside the frame of the photos in the tourist board’s brochures. But if you ride a bike along the highway, hike less-traveled trails, paddle on public waterways, or just walk the city streets to do your shopping and pick up the mail, then you really can’t avoid seeing what lies in front of your eyes, can you? And maybe that’s a good thing.

In any event, we think it’s worth the effort. To that end, Tamia Nelson’s Outside will take another look “Beyond the Beauty Strip” every month. And any number can play. So if you have an example that you’d like to share, please send it along.

 
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The weather was so pleasant when I was cycling along one of my regular routes last week that I decided to extend the ride, and I took a detour onto a road that I hadn’t traveled down before. I hadn’t gone far before a dirt track led away from the road into a woods. The sign at the intersection said Cemetery Road. It was an invitation I couldn’t refuse.

Chickadees called from the trees, and I heard a turkey clucking softly in a field just visible through the woods to the south. A quarter mile or so further on, the track suddenly came to an end. And sure enough, there was the cemetery. Ranks of neatly tended gravestones reposed on a gentle hillside, shaded by towering spruces. I left my bike at the open gate and entered the cemetery.

I walked the rows of stones and wondered about the lives of those who were buried there. Several graves marked the resting places of soldiers from the American Civil War, and a Marine who’d died in Korea kept them company, sharing a plot with his brother, who had fought in World War II. Most of the graves bore no flags or bronze markers, however. I saw the headstones of parents and their children, of octogenarians and of infants who’d died within days of being born. It was as quiet and well-tended a cemetery as any I’ve explored.

That impression stayed with me. But then I turned back to return to my bike, walking along the very boundary of the cemetery. That’s when I found the all-too-familiar informal dump, a heap of trash imperfectly concealed by leaf litter, fallen branches, and pine cones. Broken bits of artificial flowers were strewn across the ground, along with the plastic vases that once held them. All had been tossed haphazardly into the woods. It seems that “perpetual care” doesn’t extend to carting trash off to the landfill. Out of sight, out of mind? Perhaps. At least the dead can’t see the dump on their doorstep.

How many of us take the time to look beyond the beauty strip? And how many of us really want to? After all, it can be downright painful to see what lies just outside the frame of the photos in the tourist board’s brochures. But if you ride a bike along the highway, hike less-traveled trails, paddle on public waterways, or just walk the city streets to do your shopping and pick up the mail, then you really can’t avoid seeing what lies in front of your eyes, can you? And maybe that’s a good thing.

In any event, we think it’s worth the effort. To that end, Tamia Nelson’s Outside will take another look “Beyond the Beauty Strip” every month. And any number can play. So if you have an example that you’d like to share, please send it along.

 
Send a Comment