Roadside Memorials On The American Highway - photographs, reflections, information, links

<body> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td width="120" valign="top">  <p> </p> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="360" width="100%"> <tr> <td valign="top" height="350"> <p><font face="Century Gothic"> <font size="1">  </font> <a href="index.htm" target="_top"><font size="1">HOME</font></a></font></p> <p><font face="Century Gothic" size="1">   <a href="photos/index.htm" target="_top">PHOTOGRAPHY</a></font></p> <p><font face="Century Gothic" size="1">   <a href="whatever.htm" target="main">WHATEVER . . .</a></font></p> <p><font face="Century Gothic" size="1">   <a href="contact.htm" target="main">CONTACT/COMMENT</a></font></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" height="20"> <font face="Century Gothic" size="1">   <a href="index.htm" target="_top">THE OLD SAME PLACE</a>:</font></td> </tr> </table> </div>  <p> </td> <td width="640">  <p> </p> <div align="left"> <table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" height="360"> <tr> <td width="350" valign="top" height="350"> <p align="left"> <a href="colorado/elbert.htm" target="_top"> <img border="0" src="http://a4.cpimg.com/image/2A/D8/29496874-ce85-01560156-.jpg" alt="Climbing Mt. Elbert" width="342" height="342"></a></p> </td> <td width="85%" valign="top" height="350" colspan="2"> <font face="Century Gothic" size="2"> The descent beckons<br> as the ascent beckoned.<br> Memory is a kind<br> of accomplishment,<br> a sort of renewal<br> even<br> an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places<br> inhabited by hordes<br> heretofore unrealized,<br> of new kinds--<br> since their movements<br> are toward new objectives<br> (even though formerly they were abandoned).</font> </td> </tr> <center> <tr> <td width="350" valign="top"> <p><font face="Century Gothic" size="1">        <a href="index.htm" target="_top">DAVE NANCE'S WEBSITE</a> . . . WILL SOON BE MOVING <a href="http://webpages.charter.net/dnance/" target="_top">HERE</a></font></p> </td> </center> <td width="70%" valign="top"> <p align="left"> <font size="2" face="Century Gothic">— William Carlos Williams <br>      (1883-1963) <br>     from <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/williams/thedescent.htm" target="_top">The Descent</a></font> </td> <td width="30%" valign="top"> <p align="right"><a href="index-thum-fernhill.htm" target="_self"><font face="Century Gothic" size="1">more poetry. . . </font> </a> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <blockquote> <p> </p> </blockquote>  <p><font size="2" face="Century Gothic">  </font></p> </td> </tr> </table> <p align="left"><font face="Century Gothic" size="2"><i>Photography by Dave Nance. </i></font></p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Century Gothic" size="2"> "We say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say this we think of that hour as situated in an obscure and distant future. It does not occur to us that it can have any connexion with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance". </font></p> </blockquote> <p> <i> <font face="Century Gothic" size="2">Marcel Proust, In Search Of Lost Time, Vol III -<br> The Guermantes Way, Part Two : Chapter One</font></i></p> <p align="left"><font face="Century Gothic" size="2">The custom of marking the site of a death on the highway has deep roots in the Hispanic culture of the Southwest, where roadside memorials are often referred to as <i>descansos</i> ("resting places"). Traditionally, <i>descansos </i>were memorials erected at the places where the funeral procession paused to rest on the journey between the church and the cemetery. The association thus created between the road, the interrupted journey, and death as a destination, eventually found expression in the practice of similarly marking the location of fatal accidents on the highway.</font></p> <p><font face="Century Gothic" size="2">Roadside memorials are a kind of  <i>memento mori</i>:   their power derives from the fact that they remind us of our mortality -- and of the mortality of those we love.  Roadside memorials are so effective at this, because they confront  us  with the reality of death as an actual event that arrives for a particular person, at a particular place, at a particular time.   They thus recall Proust's cautionary observation about death in the afternoon.</font></p> <hr> <p align="center">[<a href="http://photolinks.org/in.php?ID=171" target="_top">Photolinks.org</a>]                                 [<a href="http://photolinks.org/index.php?show=review_add&SiteID=171" target="_top">Review This Site</a>] <hr> <p><i>You are at "The Old Same Place", the website of Dave Nance. This is the "no frames" version of the "<a href="index.htm">Photography by Dave Nance - Descansos (Roadside Memorials)</a>" page. The frames version of this page consists of: [<a href="index-nav.htm">index-nav.htm</a>] and [<a href="index-thum.htm">index-thum.htm</a>].  All images at this website are <a href="../copyrightnotice.htm">©  David B. Nance</a> </i></p> </body>