7 SPRING 2025 But, as Medley says, “This is not a book about gas, nor a guidebook. ... It’s a book about work, culture, and survival.” She continues, “The gas stations I stopped at compelled me to dig deeper and to wonder: Who lives here? What do they do for work? What do they eat? What do they believe? What is the pace of their day? What is important in their America? Their South?” In the book’s foreword, fellow Mississippian and celebrated author Kiese Laymon poignantly realizes that, as he was growing up in Forest, his favorite restaurant served gas. His appreciation for gas station restaurants is deepened when he learns Ms. Joyce–a decades-long worker at one of his favorite restaurants explained that it was the worst job of her life in terms of pay and labor while also providing the most fun because of the people she met and “got to love on.” In her work and this exhibit, Medley explores these stories; it isn’t just the gas, or the food—it’s about the people, and the communities that are sustained by these outposts. The photographs encapsulate stories of people—families, immigrants, farmers, cooks, proprietors, and customers—in places that offer sustenance in many ways. As she drove across the South, Medley found that gas stations are often the hub of rural communities, a cross section of society: “There is an egalitarian nature to the gas station, integral to the lives of people in every socioeconomic bracket if you live in the South, especially rural areas. I loved that we could get batteries and gizzards. I loved that we could get biscuits and Super Glue. I loved that we could get dishwashing soap, which was also bubble bath, which was also the soap we used to wash Grandmama’s Impala, and the good hot sauce in the same aisle. — Kiese Laymon, from forward to Kate Medley’s Thank You Please Come Again book “ ” Kate Medley, Big White, Starch Down, Prichard, Alabama, 2023.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQxNg==