I went to Fitzgerald a couple of weekends ago for a birthday party and a memorial service, the kinds of gatherings that pull us back to our hometowns. While I was there, Lands Crossing was on my mind. The old store there had recently been struck by a vehicle and badly damaged, and I had a sinking feeling it wouldn’t be around much longer. In a light rain, I rode with my father out to that familiar landmark, about ten minutes from my childhood home, and carefully made a bunch of photographs. This week, I received a message that it had been demolished. In my line of work, I see these kinds of outcomes all over the state, but when a landmark is personal, it just hits different. Henry Land’s Grocery wasn’t just a store; it was a storehouse of memories for people from all over the area, a place that quietly held pieces of many lives. It meant something not only to those who lived nearby, but also to the many who passed it over the years and folded it into their own stories. There were some painful memories, too, of families who had lost loved ones in a tragic highway accident years earlier, and those sorrows lingered there as well. Yet, for the most part, it stood as a symbol of the good neighbors who supported it and of the everyday kindness that made it the heart of a community. I’m grateful to have been able to document it over the years. Even though the building had changed a bit, it was still an important landmark to people in this neck of the woods.