Martin Cox

 

There is a small unremarkable street running about one block north of Hobson Way in Blythe, CA called Green Valley Road. If you look carefully, you can see that the street is approximately one hundred million years long as it stretches away from view.  Far in the distance, the Big Maria Mountains loom bluish and heavy on the horizon, they date from the Cretaceous period, but then got a thorough stretching more recently in the Miocene period. There is no apparent evidence of the people with unknown names, who named this place with unknown names.  Nothing left of the Patayan peoples practicing floodplain agriculture and the naming of Green Valley Road by settlers, or even by Thomas Blythe himself in 1877. We can see is the remains of a track, made by wheeled vehicles, likely leading to the fields from the fledgling town of Blythe settled.  Wagon wheels to automobiles nearing the edge of pavement.  Suddenly the present draws close, the town is incorporated in 1916, as we leave the dusty track and approach the paved road we may be hurling in to the 1930s. Two meters later, visible edging closer, it could be the 1950s, by the time we arrive at the contemporary curb and edge towards the American Express sign we have arrived at the time of the digital camera.