Rathole: A Photographic Essay

Welcome to Rathole. My home. My hell. Rathole has some redeeming qualities, points of vague interest, and a few really pretty sights. Any good photographer can find beauty amongst the wreckage, but it takes someone with insight to feature the hidden reality. Call me a realist. Let's have a look.

This is my favorite view of Rathole. It says it all.

 

 

Most of Rathole is in various degrees of decay. Few new property owners with money and energy bother to see potential. Needed repairs are ignored, the building left abandoned and the structure disintegrates.



 

 

When a building falls down or burns down, the rubble is left where it is. If someone complains loudly enough, the rubble is removed and a vacant lot is born. Rathole has lots of vacant lots.



 

The local junk man is not what he seems. Years ago he won the lottery. Millions. With his new-found wealth, he bought up debilitated buildings and vacant lots and turned them into junk yards and slums.

Rathole is now one big junk yard with the old and used on every corner...

 

...and stored in every empty building. There should be a law against this, but if there were, I doubt if anyone would care enough to enforce it. Rathole suffers from apathy.

 



 

 

Junkman, Lord of the Slums, also wins the award as the number one slumlord. He doesn't care. There is a certain justice to poverty restricting trailer trash from owning land. Unfortunately, anyone is allowed to buy a lottery ticket.

 

 

I had a police officer tell me once you can tell which properties are Junkman's. The ones that look like they should be condemned. Junkman's step-daughter used to live near me. She told me she asked Junkman when he dies to will her the blue apartments so she could burn them to the ground. I didn't even know which ones she was talking about. The "blue" is so faded and dirty I didn't think it was blue:

Junkman used to be the owner of the most popular bar. Here's the bar:

It was condemned. And then it just fell down and disappeared. Now he uses the lot for storage. Open-air storage:

One can always tell how destitute a location is. When times get tough, people head to the local bars to drown their sorrows, find a compassionate ear, and feel as if things aren't so bad. The problem with frequenting bars is unless you have some really generous friends willing to foot the bill, you gotta have money for those drinks. Management usually frowns on a customer nursing a glass of water every night and friends will eventually expect you to reciprocate.

If no one has money, even the bars go out of business.

Unable to reciprocate the generosity and buy a round for everyone?


...the truly poor head to church. It's free.



Where Life and Faith Meet...it's peeling!

A place to drown sorrows, find a compassionate ear and maybe some charity so it doesn't feel so bad. Rathole has a whole lot of churches scattered throughout the town and over the countryside. More churches than bars. That's always a sign.

The exceptionally poor head to one of the break-off churches. These congregations aren't affiliated with the money-worshipping religions who actually have an official meeting place and must guilt parishioners into paying for upkeep and taxes. Rathole has a whole lot of rental congregations so it's good Rathole has a whole lot of businesses that have gone under and are now trying to rent out their store fronts for cheap.

I'm sure they were liberated from the tyrannical, corporate-like religions who congregate in church buildings. They have moved their location many times, from one deserted building to the next abandoned store front.

 

They just pick up their plastic chairs and walk them a block away.

Residents who have lived in Rathole all their lives tell me the place was booming in the 1960s. They boast of a community filled with department stores, car dealerships, restaurants, gas stations, and more than one major grocery chain. I've read some history on the area along with population statistics. At one point this town claimed 40,000 residents. Now it's just 2000 people with wistful memories of days gone by. People who leave take their money with them. Eventually there is not enough consumers to buy anything. Every year businesses have closed their doors leaving buildings empty.

Department store chains have left town.

 

 

Car dealerships have uprooted everything leaving vacant lots.

Diners with empty seats.

Grocery stores have razed their buildings to the concrete.

This used to be Safeway...

Bakeries no longer bake yummy treats and instead harbor old, ugly furniture.

Gas stations are used for storage and parking.

 

Appliance store marquees are blank and windows dark.

Rental signs fill the windows of most empty buildings. (Well, if they aren't filled with Junkman's junk!)

Not to mention the vacant homes left to suffocate in mold and mildew.

Everything is left to rot and disintegrate.

Even in the relatively short time I've been living in Rathole, I've seen many businesses closed. Rathole is heading toward ghost town distinction. Or extinction.

Rathole is, however, well-known by tourists. It's the stop-off location between point A and B on the recreational vehicle tour. Rathole is where road-trip tourists stop to let their dogs out to crap. Not much else to do in Rathole.

My home is a dog toilet.

 

 

I'm looking forward to moving.