“Tourist Trap” from “Remembering Eternity”
For the 4th of July: “South Carolina Tourist Trap” from “Remembering Eternity”: “Each of the corners of the square building had the shape of a rocket, with a turret for its cone. Oversize state and national flags hung limp from poles at least fifty feet high. The entire building had been painted red, white, and blue. Letters running vertically down the length of the front rockets advertised “FIREWORKS”; the establishment’s name “RED’S” glared out of a trapezoidal cartouche at the center of the frontage; below and to the sides of this identifier, painted beneath stars, using cursive and printed lettering in crimson and vivid blue were the words “COLD CUTS,” “MILK,” “JUICES,” “Liquor and Wines,” and, in a dazzling yellow band across the bottom, “SOUVENIRS.” The advertising sides of the building enticed motorists with “Cold Beer,” “Picnic Supplies,” “Gifts,” and “Country Cured Hams.” Tables in front of the store offered up trinkets carved from native nuts and dolls with heads fashioned from peach pits, real tobacco leaves, and packages of farm-fresh wild rice. Four gas pumps huddled off to the side of the building like an afterthought.”
