My rental car turned out to be an enormous 2001 Buick Regal. I chose it over the Intrepid just because my dad has a Regal, so I knew where all the buttons were.
Or so I thought.
Annoying things about Buick Regals:
- The headlights don’t turn off until a good while after the ignition is off and the doors are shut.
- The radio doesn’t turn off until you open the door, which was a very disturbing realization for me as I parked at the Burger King in Winston-Salem.
- The ashtray was obviously designed by either a sadist or an anti-smoking activist.
- The “low tire” light needs to go away.
Anyhow, once I had the car, I toured Winston-Salem for a while, looking for old supermarkets and urban grit, while completely forgetting to seek out the seashell-shaped gas station.
Later this afternoon, my dad and I, armed with new information, went looking for that tombstone again. This time we found it. It didn’t photograph as well as the rest of Eden. We also drove by the house my dad grew up in.
Actually, I drove. It was a little odd; I’m not used to driving my dad around. He rarely lets anyone drive him anywhere. But we wanted to take the spiffy new Regal, so…
Cool thing I learned today: my grandafther (who died long before I was born) was fired from a textile mill in the 1930s for being a union organizer…