Eerie ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ploughing my way through a heap of old Kodachromes - the aim being to produce a travel-photography book - my curiosity was aroused when I came across this rather ordinary-looking picture of a Texaco petrol station. It was from 'somewhere' in America and slightly blurred as it was snatched through the window of a moving Greyhound bus during a trip in 1985. Why I was moved to press the shutter I'll never know, and I doubt the photo will even make the cut when it comes to compiling my book, but I spent a while removing dust and scratches from the image just in case ..

'I wonder where this was,' I thought, as I reminisced about the wonderful time I'd had on the trip. Major destinations I can obviously remember - Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles - but to get to those I had to pass through little places like this. And then I spotted a name. Jim Musolf. It says it below the Texaco sign on the front of the building. I googled the name and there, from a post by the Hendersonville Times-News in 2012 was his obituary. Born in 1921, married for 62 years, a WW11 veteran and an ardent volunteer worker who retired and moved to North Carolina in 1985. And then my answer .. Erie, Pennsylvania .. the town in which he was born and where he returned from fighting in the Pacific to open up his own Texaco station. God, I love photography! God, I love the internet. Rest in peace, Jim ..

Eerie!