Back to the Roots

Everyday, the real news sections of the WSJ seem to get more discouraging. I mean, go economic recovery, wooo! I'm still trying to understand the shell game going on with the government, GM, and the Delphi deal, but my feeble brain can't comprehend such complexity when it comes to smoke and mirror shenanigans. Leave it to the weekend section to provide articles of interest and inspiration.

Front and center, there was an article about the increased interest from both diners and restaurateurs alike in the new spin on the good old fashioned roach coach lunch truck. Having done my turn on more than one construction site, I am familiar with the varying degrees of culinary excellence available via mobile dining. I have seen trucks that are merely convenience stores on wheels and I have had some of the best tacos I have ever eaten. Hats off to those putting the finer dining options on the street and finding creative ways to keep their dreams alive, hopefully "the man" doesn't start regulating this niche out of existence, after all, eating food from a cart is as old as the cart itself.

Having put the cart before the horse, a few pages deeper into the weekend section on the WSJ sports page (first color photography in the WSJ, now sports . . . thanks Rupert Murdoch, can't wait for the Fox News Section . . .) there was an article about "bush tracks" in Louisiana as the training ground for what is now a dying breed, the American jockey. I swear, everything that comes out of Calvin Borel's mouth is gold. He got on a horse at the age of 2 and his older brother, a trainer, decided he was ready to race at the age of 8. Borel on dropping out of school in the 8th grade, "It was pretty clear I wasn’t going to be no doctor or no lawyer" and on the disappearance of bush tracks, "It’s going to be real hard for them boys to come out of there without the bushes anymore."

Just for quick comparison, here's Borel back in the day on a straight bush track:


And on the track at Churchill Downs:


In all honesty, not much has changed besides jockey attire and the backdrop. Well I guess the horse is probably a couple million dollars more expensive, the entry fee is more than the $2 charged at Cajun Downs, the stakes are higher, and there are actual turns on the track. The roots of the sport and the history of the training grounds for men like Calvin Borel are fascinating. Thanks to "the man" and regulatin', you have to be 16 before you can race horses legally and the bush tracks are disappearing, meaning "the Cajun pipeline is running dry without those Sunday morning match races that followed the Saturday night cockfights."

Music maestro (for what it is worth, S.C.O.T.S. will be playing at the Gothic in Denver next Friday) . . .

Just yesterday, while catching up on posts on the Endangered Durham Blog, I came across a post with subject matter outside of Durham, NC just a little ways down Highway 70, in Hillsborough. In all likelihood, I would have never known there was another race track in Orange County besides the Orange County Motor Speedway. I have heard stories about back in the day when it was a dirt track with no fencing, but it turns out one of the original tracks used for NASCAR was back in the woods in Hillsborough.


As you can see from the satellite image, over the years, nature has reclaimed the space for its own. The outline of the track is still visible, but these days it is part of a walking path.


The grandstand and some other features are still there, slowly decaying while the urban fabric surrounding what was once Occoneechee Farm continues to develop.


Stock car racing is now far, far removed from its roots hearkening back to the days of running moonshine. Today's super speedways, like all modern sporting facilities have more amenities, more seating, more everything except character.


I highly doubt anybody will be writing a paper like this one about racing these days . . . I did a quick search but couldn't find a scientific/psychological term for nostalgia for a time in which one did not live, but I find myself experiencing a sense of fondness for some of these times gone by. "Back in the day" had its ups and downs for sure, but I miss some of the manners and mannerism that are long lost and a time when things were simply slower.