Onslow County: By Kitty Ethridge

For Curing Tobacco and Storing Small Machinery ©2012 Kitty Ethridge

A trip down south to document my past was derailed by doctors and hospitals and a family unable to decide what to do with me when life strikes. These barns and sausages drying, late night photos down seldom traveled country roads, and the seemingly odd Polaroid shots of a small town's shout out to Mardi Gras, are the scavenged remains of a couple of hours here and there between trips to Duke hospital, Durham, and my parent's home on the coast of North Carolina.

Tying leaves on the Stick ©2012 Kitty Ethridge

Originally I went down planning to stay for a week to document my past and take some portraits of my mother's people, her mother's sisters and brother-in-law. I needed her to geographically navigate the back roads that I've forgotten, and ease me into a family that loves me but has always viewed me with suspicion. Instead she was hospitalized and I ended up only slightly dipping my toe into the fertile dark soil of the land where I grew up.

Handmade Breakfast Sausage Drying ©2012 Kitty Ethridge

Late Night at Ace's and a NY Yankees Fan ©2012 Kitty Ethridge

Salvation on a Back Road ©2012 Kitty Ethridge

Mardi Gras in Beaufort ©2012 Kitty Ethridge

The barns of course are the relics of a time when tobacco was king. The acres of fields behind them either lie fallow or wait their turn in the rotation of what is presently considered more acceptable cash crops; cotton, soybean, corn. I didn't fail my objective completely. I've just had to push the time line out a bit further and we all know this is problematic with the living. One aunt has just died, and time thus continues to laugh at me.