Best Sunset
This is random.
Over coffee, the other morning, couple of fishing buddies?
“What’s the best sunset you’ve seen?”
My fishing buddies waxed poetic about Hawaii.
Three or four places I’ve lived and visited? Sure, at school in Arizona, the desert in the evening, New Mexico, again, pretty and predictable. Austin, San Antonio, and even El Paso, all qualifiers, sure.
Northern New Mexico, especially, is rich in color, more an ochre rather than the deep red sandstones of Arizona canyon lands.
But over the span of my own lifetime, so far, the best sunsets I ever experienced? I was walking, happened frequently on infrequent occasions, but I would be walking north on South Austin’s First Street, headed down the hill toward the lake and Riverside, spring, summer, fall, around sunset.
Sandy’s Burgers, the special was burger, fries, medium drink, for $2.59, Tuesday and Saturday? Thursday? Don’t recall. But the special, and the old neon sign, bright against the backdrop of a fabulous sunset, the colors of the sky etched in majestic shades, with highlights and hints, streaks of orange, purple, sometimes? Austin’s Violet Crown visible in the burgeoning dusk; bats skittering in the twilight.
I lived in a space the size of a marginally large tackle-box, on the edge of the river, no car, no TV, very few problems, just scholarly pursuits, and chasing the fish in Town Lake.
More than two-dozen years back. I recall one conversation, as I described this image, “Couldn’t you just take a picture in the daytime, then Photoshop in some sunset?”
It isn’t the same.
I stopped by before seeing that Shakespeare Scottish Play last spring. Images are now separated by more than two decades.
Best Sunset
For me? Best sunset was in old Austin, Sandy’s at sundown. Headed homeward, and maybe, to fish in a summer’s eve. The funny piece of this puzzle and my answer? I never got that really good picture of the sunset.
