The Dusty Road

I've walked this dusty dirt road before. See that cow pasture?

Used to be, Mr. Curtis, Granddad's trusted field hand, would take us kids for a ride, maneuvering the mule-drawn wagon into the cow pasture with us kids hanging off the back, our legs dangling from the end of the wagon. The cows followed the wagon, thinking it was feeding time, and we entertained each other by pushing one another off the end of the wagon and laughing like crazy watching brother or sister high-tail it back onto the end of the wagon ahead of a stampede of stupid cows. Cows are blind, did you know?

I've walked this dusty yard before. Where Trudy, Grandmother's housemaid and best friend, would brush the yard clean with a handmade broom of field branches bound tight with string, and the chickens and roasters would strut their stuff and litter behind her. The mysterious well stood in the middle of the yard, its ominous depth foreboding to us kids. The pomegranate tree grew at the corner of the old house, a wondrous exotic specimen that bore strange fruit we could paint our bodies with.

I've walked this dusty track before. The smoke houses, the chicken coup, - and Trudie's own home, a two-room shack wallpapered in rodeo posters and newsprint. Trudie had several children, all out of wedlock, and for each child she kept a doll on her bed. We weren't allowed in Trudie's house, but my very mischevious cousin Dianne told me the dolls were there, for sure.

I've walked this dusty dirt road before, the one in front of the old country home where my mother grew up. Once it was painted, which was a sign of prosperity, but someone has let the structure lapse into a state of despair. I stand still at the wrought iron hurricane fence and look onto the front porch, where I am sitting on my Granddaddy's knee. I am a one-year old. See my mother in the rocking chair to Granddaddy's left? Isn't she beautiful? Mother is waiting patiently for Dad to come home from Korea. And see my Grandmother - my beloved Nanny? She is fanning herself with a cardboard funeral fan in the rocker to the right. My youngest child looks just like her now.

I 've walked this dusty dirt track before, headed to Cuddin' Ben's store, where we'd buy Vanilla
Wafers and a cold Coca-Cola in a bottle. We'd snap off the top of that bottle on the handy bottle opener nailed to the wooden frame outside the front door of Cuddin' Ben's store. Crystals of ice would slide down the bottle due to the heat of the south Georgia climate. Sometimes we'd put that cold bottle to our foreheads, or on our chest, a brief respite from the exhaustive humidity of south Georgia.

I've walked this dusty ground before, in front of the old cotton gin. Be careful not to get a cotton spur in your foot. It can hurt real bad. But my feet were tough and worn hard from walking barefoot, which we did in south Georgia. Who didn't?

I've walked this dusty route before, headed to Aunt Vicky's house, where she and Mom would put up pickles in Mason jars from cucumbers in Aunt Vicky's garden, by the pumphouse and the wonderful source of spring water. It took all day - pickling those cucumbers. We kids would lay down in the cool Saint Angustine grass underneath the pecan trees, taking sanctuary from the heat. And we'd watch Mom and her sister jar up those cucumbers and laugh, and occasionally wipe a brow with their aprons.

I've walked this dusty journey before, where Quarterly Meeting was held at the Wesley Chapel Church. The fried chicken, potato salad, summer vegetables, and sweet ice tea would line the tables. What a feast! Not to mention the apple pies, the cherry pies, the pound cakes, and marshmallow jello puddings. And afterwards, we'd sit back in those broad-backed metal chairs that rocked back and forth, and let our stomach muscles bulge, making room for more that would inevitably come as the sun began to set across the cow pastures beyond the church. The old men would talk about the cotton and peanut crops, and I, my brothers and cousins would fight over the comic books. I always got the Archie comics, because I was the only girl and no one else wanted to read about Veronica. Lucky me.

I've walked this dusty path before, where we'd head down into the bluff, a wondrous maze of concrete steps leading down into the hollow where we'd swim in the spring-fed pool, so cold it would stop your heart. A gazebo guarded the spring, its purpose for courting long time ago. No ones goes in there anymore, though. I think that's sad, because I'd like to have a boyfriend to hold hands with. Oh well.

I've walked this dusty road before, to the barn where Uncle Wilmer kept his hay. We kids would burrow tunnel mazes deep into the 15-foot hay walls, making rooms in unseen places in which to play hide-and-seek. Watch out for the spiders, though. They can be creepy.

And now I walk this dusty road again, an adult headed to the funeral of one of my last ties to this place - Uncle Wilmer. There are sandals on my feet, and gray in my hair, and I am missing terribly my dead cousins and the youth and the spring-fed pools, and the mule-wagon rides, and Archie and JugHead and all. I have a mortgage and a job and a life back in Atlanta, and I am here not because I want to be, but because I need to be.

I walk this dusty dirt road knowing that this is my last trip to this place I loved, this place where my youth was spent. The old home will be sold, the barn will not be my playground to explore. The pump house won't be the catalyst for pickling cucumbers, and the St. Augustine grass will not be mine to lay upon and sleep.

I walk this dusty dirt road to the Wesley Chapel Church which is lovely in its simplicity. The service is sweet, and the luncheon the country ladies give us afterwards is bittersweet: fried chicken, potato salad, summer vegetables, sweet ice tea, apple pies, cherry pies, the pound cakes, and marshmallow jello puddings.

I walk the dusty path to the bluff, my siblings, my remaining cousins and me. We descent down the forgotten pathway, over fallen trees to the old swimming pool, now a desolate hole in the ground, springing forth trees and vines and other things that shouldn't be. We look at this swimming hole, and look at each other, and wonder what happened to our childhood. We are sad.

Having paid our dues to that part of our childhood, we leave it behind forever, turning our backs on the hole in the ground that once was so vibrant with lively swimmers escaping the south Georgia heat. We climb up the maze of concrete steps, middle aged and graying, all of us with a vague sense of childhood gone. We are confused and bewildered and exhausted by the loss of it all.

We walk the dusty dirt road, having purposely shed our shoes, one more time for the memory. Of having the warm south Georgia sand - a mixture of white crystals blended with muddy orange bits of Georgia clay - between our toes. Of remembering when we were young and carefree and innocent. Of paying due to our aunt and uncle and cousins who left this life before us.

We walk the dusty road once more in unison. We walk silently, introspectively, hand in hand, paying homage to a life long ago.

And at the end of the day, we get back in our SUVs, and head back to the big city of Atlanta, where we'll once more put back on our shoes, never to walk the dusty dirt road of south Georgia again.

It is gone.