COVID ghost towns line the 287 to Texas
Driving along the 287 through Texas and New Mexico, the effects of the Corona Virus lockdown are stark, raw, and inescapable.
Plywood boards still new, yellow, and fresh, cover up recently shuttered windows on small businesses that just couldn’t survive the economic devastation sweeping across the United States.
In tiny towns which were already fading, these freshly bankrupt businesses stand like abandoned puppies craving their owners return - all hope slowly oozing from their once lit windows, joy sucked out of these once-bustling streets.
These new economic victims stand next to ruins with windows long since smashed in rage, grey weathered window boards ripped off and graffitied, lovingly painted walls peeling in unkempt tatters.
Decay takes over it all.
Tumbleweeds of faded rodeo posters blow along the sidewalk. A memorial to the good times long since gone.
In one small town, four businesses still operate along the half-mile main drag; a coffee shop, a DQ, a liquor store, and a gas station.
There always seems to be a DQ.
Nothing else remains.
The streets are devoid of people, the life sucked out.
Old and new for sale signs line the streets. Many swing by a rusty nail. Hopes for just some cash back long since abandoned. What little can be squeezed from the remains, grabbed by the bank.
Who would move here anyway?
We sit and watch. Helpless.
Shut-downs are lifted and re-implemented, slow breaths of a still-waking monster. The surge and ebb of a virus destroying a nation divided.
What is America’s future now?
