Booger Tree

As soon as I saw it on the map, I knew my fate was sealed. There was really no question in my mind. About my need to visit, I mean. I had plenty of questions.

Why is the town called Booger Tree? Is there a specific tree for wiping boogers on? Is there a tree that LOOKS like it’s covered in boogers? Is there a tree that looks like a single monolithic booger? Stay tuned reader, and you may find out.

Traveling from Natural Bridge, whose provenance is in considerably less doubt, I turned from numbered state road to numbered state road until lady google told me to turn right on Booger Tree Road. She sounded uncharacteristically excited, as though it’s something she doesn’t get to say often. I know the feeling.

The rolling hills of Booger Tree Road are actually quite picturesque, in between the rotting corpses of houses built too recently to be so dilapidated without serious neglect. Some were collapsed now-im-mobile homes, with household objects poking out of the wounds of time and mystery.

Rolling hills offered pleasant views of tall yellow grass. Someone probably thinks it should be mowed. I know this because an enormous percentage of this country is mowed, mostly for unclear reasons. Grass is clearly the evolutionary winner, on account of whatever it did to convince humans to senselessly cultivate it.

The (usually) less-collapsed structures suggested some of those humans could be found inside, or on the porch, or in a chair in the middle of the yard. Mostly though, there were dogs. Collared but roaming, dutifully guarding the piece of dirt, or sometimes grass, their providers call home. So, too, do the PRIVATE PROPERTY and NO TRESPASSING signs protect the inhabitants from uninvited visitors.

I find these signs are most common among the poorest. Once they have three or four rusting vehicle husks and a good sized pile of broken televisions, they start to really worry someone is going to take them. Maybe, having so little, they cling to what they have. Maybe there’s a gang of garbage thieves about which I’m blissfully unaware, regularly casing the choicest piles of porch garbage, waiting to pounce the moment someone brings their dog inside.

Most of them were pretty chill, looking curiously at my “not from around here” vehicle as i passed. The people, and the dogs, I mean. One got so excited as I approached that he spun around three times before chasing me down the road till he made it to the edge of his domain. A Labrador, I mean. The dog kind, not the Canadian one.

There are also trees in Booger Tree.

I was hoping for a sign, or a Booger and/or Tree related amusement park. Or two competing families across the road, each claiming to have the One True Booger Tree, where one could examine the historic booger of George Washington, or pay a dollar to add a fresh booger and take a selfie.

Instead I found a whole lot of people clinging to the idea that Jesus, or the Confederate Army, or Donald Trump would lift them out of squalor, if they could only find the time. I’m sure one of them will be getting around to it any moment now.

Wary of the signs, and dogs, and lack of a safe place to pull over, the best I could do was flick a booger out the window.

H