Inside, there’s antiques and chainsaw sculpture and faux taxidermy that sings in four-part harmony for a dollar. Sad it’s not working today. There’s the usual gifts and jams and buckets o’ cheese dip. A very talkative Asian housewife tasting wine…yeah…still tasting…  There’s an ice cream shop and a BBQ, of course that sells tri-trip because beef gets more tasty when it’s labeled tri-tip.

The place is maybe two or three years old, tops. But it’s all under a veneer of this carefully weathered wood. Goodness, there are even termite holes. And the place is strangely self aware. A real western town wouldn’t have a statue of Gary Cooper reaching for his pistol right next to the men’s room. There’s a shiny faux longhorn skull mounted on the wall and shiny faux country music playing on the PA.

I even let myself ease a little into that wannabe drawl I picked up from my trip to Atlanta and my ongoing conversations I have with my publisher AJ. Because it’s Day 2, and I really have only a hundred or so miles to go between me and my next stop: the Pea Soup paradise of Santa Nella.

I actually have time. Time to see someone teaching her grandma how to properly eat a waffle cone. A family completely delighted with finding the perfect “Tenant Parking Only” sign. Some guy I thought might be an classic old-school redneck proudly wearing a teacher’s union t-shirt. There’s pickled okra and the ice cream. Someone carved a bear out of a log with a chainsaw, turned it into a “welcome” sign, and the kids are playing with it.

With kids come the moms. Moms. With Mom Hair and Mom Voices in their Mom Shorts bonding over Mom Things. They are not white or black or asian or latino. They are Moms. One Mom with a boy is trying to get him to follow the rest of them, but he is fascinated by Gary Cooper’s pistol.

This place almost flaunts its lack of history. And why not? Does it need history, anyway? So much history is available online–except for the ice cream and okra and tri-tip–really, everything else here is just for play.  That’s not sad. To me, that’s fun. Go Asian grandma! Nibble that waffle cone right on down!

But what I DO find sad is that it’s still not too queer friendly. What I find tragic is that we are so darned close to being there. Just a bit more work a bit more openness–come on, queers and okra–doesn’t that sound yummy? But gosh..

One of the reasons I can be so chill here and drink my Diet Coke and scribble in my notebook is because I can go into the women’s room and no one cares. We call that “pass privilege,” right? But, serious what sort of privilege is that? To pee?

If peeing is a privilege–then what on earth is a human right? We aren’t talking about endangering anyone. We don’t need a glory hole next to the cheese spread, or a lube rack next to the beef jerky. We are all just travelers here on the I-5. This is a place where we should just all meet, look at chainsaw bear and bond in a sense of mutual shared suspension of disbelief. Meta for the masses!

This is not assimilation. It’s something else.

It’s inclusion.

That’s what I want here, right now. For queers, genderqueer folx, trans people, lesbians holding hands–not tight and guarded we-shall-overcome hands, but relaxed, walk-on-the-beach hands–all of them.

I want them in here, enjoying the tri-tip, chatting with the Moms, wondering which chainsaw the bear carver used.

I want them peeing in peace.

I want the folks here to grow up. I want them to remember something called the Golden Rule, that you should do unto others as you want others to do unto you. And that you’d want them to smile at you. To say “Howdy.” To look at chainsaw bear, know the “welcome” means you, coming as you are, as you have an ice cream and take a break from the road.  To leave with a jar of okra and a faux antique tin sign, and while you think, “That was fun, y’all,” they say, “Thank you, please come again.”