Idle Minutes

Being a native son of Georgia, I was raised around pine trees and azaleas. The azalea was the de facto standard shrub when I was a kid.

Everybody used them, and they still do, but now they are usually up against the house more often than not. That’s because developers here always clear-cut a chunk of land before building a new neighborhood. So the “landscaping” usually ends up next to the houses with most of the lawns manicured and cordoned off by driveways. There are neat straight hedges and very specific “areas” for landscaping and flower beds.

Occasionally though, you can find little jewels as you drive down the roads.

Such was the case today as I traveled on a side street that crosses between two major thoroughfares several miles apart. An older home on a few acres had a wooded area buffering it from the road.

Many years ago, the owners decided some azaleas would look nice amidst the big pines there. Today, it is a strikingly peaceful scene in an otherwise fast-paced suburb.

I saw it first at 45mph and was so surprised by it I decided to give it another run with my camera hanging out of my window. I got a reasonably good shot and painted it up on a postcard this evening.

When I was a kid, we would visit my uncle Dink and Aunt Winnie in the country. Mom and Dad, Dink, Winnie, Grandma Idel, and Grandpa Gordon would sit out under the huge pines in the front yard, in those cheap folding chairs with the nylon webbing…and talk about things.

I would lay in the grass and look up at those tall pines with the sun filtering through. Azaleas were here and there…always near the pines.

This scene reminded me of that.