[home] [contents] [back issues] [subscribe]

[submissions] [mission] [message board] [contact us]

Filling Up On America
by Lori Olson
      

Excerpts:

     The station was like a hundred others in small rural towns across America. I'd stopped at many over the years to fill up with gas, grab a cold diet Coke, and take advantage of the semi-clean restroom hidden away between the spare tires and the oil barrels. The station attendant looked vaguely familiar as well, a hardworking, grease-smeared man with a slow smile and an ear for automobiles. Everything, in fact, was familiar, except the cemetery across the road. We were in the heart of Dixie, and row after row of small white markers reminded me, a Yankee, of the sacrifice these people, and this community, had made for a cause they felt was just.

     Habitual curiosity had me asking the attendant about the cemetery. I didn't expect much of an answer – just enough to pass the time until the tank was filled and we were on our way. Forty-five minutes later, the tank had been topped off, the cold diet coke in my hand had evaporated and my kids and I were still standing in the full service aisle of a small town gas station deep in Georgia . . .

. . .

. . . He didn't know it then, and I'm not sure I did either, but the gas station attendant changed the course of my life and the lives of my children forever. It got us thinking about history as a story waiting to be told, and wondering how many other stories there were in America we'd never heard. Within the week, we were talking about a year-long journey across America . . .

. . . To read the rest of this story, please subscribe.