Ain't Nobody Say Amen

Artist: Larry Jon Wilson

Album: Let Me Sing My Song to You

Song: "Willoughby Grove"

A pile of dissected National Geographic magazines stands stacked in a crate on my closet floor. Dried glue remains stuck to the paper where I tore the perfect binding apart. Most of the issues I have collected were published between the late 1960s and late 1970s, the era where bellbottoms mingled with the boot cut. Perhaps inspired by the impending Bicentennial, most every month contained at least one article about the United States: a town, city, state, or region. There would be an economic analysis and an appreciation of the people. When I read these pieces and study the pictures, I am filled with conflicting fascination and ache. Fascination because the articles are inspirational for planning road trips; an ache for a time I can never visit. So I travel. To find any places time has left untouched, to discover what happened to Willoughby Grove.