drawn on the fourth of july

On a warm July 4 morning I was dropped off in Jacksonville – sorry, historic Jacksonville – just outside Medford, in the hills of southern Oregon. It’s a gorgeous little town, like the Old West, and Old Glory was draped up and down the main thoroughfare, California Street. And the cyclists! It was like the tour de France, so many cyclists, many of whom were on tandems – there was even a whole family of five on a single tandem bike, the tallest at the front, the shortest at the back (seems like it would make more sense the other way round). They received applause and cheers as they cycled south. There was a small British themed store, run by a woman from Yorkshire, and I bought a package of Yorkshire pudding mix (I love them!), which came with the warning that if I tried to make the puddings at any sort of significant altitude, they wouldn’t rise. I think I’ll be ok making them in Davis.

I opened up a brand new watercolour moleskine (number 6), drew a stretch of the main street, as cyclists and daytrippers whizzed and waddled by respectively. One passing woman stopped, asked me to remove my earphones, and told me that I should put my drawing on a t-shirt, Jacksonville needs that, “because you’ve probably noticed but there aren’t many t-shirts with drawings of Jacksonville on them.” I hadn’t noticed, no, I said, and put my earphones back on.