The Gravel Road

Jeff Foxworthy made the following quote somewhat famous:

"You might be a redneck if directions to your house include 'turn off the paved road.'"

Although the road directly in front of our house is paved, a little ways down, the paving abruptly ends and the road becomes a gravel road.  It is a road that you want to drive slowly on as there are no shoulders and a passing car is likely to throw a rock that will chip your windshield and even though it is gravel, it becomes slick when it rains that will fill your fender wells with clay and gravel.  When you get close to a stop sign on a gravel road, graders cause things we call "washboard."  Washboard will vibrate your vehicle so much that it will jar the fillings right out of your teeth.  In dry spells, roads like this will deposit a layer of dust so thick on your vehicle that it guarantees the local car washes stay in business.  So what good are gravel roads or dirt roads anyway?

Well, I posit that real America exists on these country roads.  There is a simplicity and honesty and lack of pretension here that is lacking in our 'civilized' culture.  Even though I was only 5 years old, I remember when John Denver sang a song called Country Roads that sang of this notion nostalgically, "Country Roads, Take Me Home, to a place I belong, West Virginia, Mountain Momma, Take Me Home, Country Roads..."  I had read somewhere that John Denver had never even been to West Virginia before he co-wrote that song. Anyway, there's something about getting off of the pavement (in any State) that is healing for the soul.

Gravel Road

The other day after a series of rains passed through the area, I took the boys and a neighbor's kid down the dirt road to a gully that eventually flows into Bayou Nezpique.  We come down here every once in a while to plink at cans that knuckleheads have thrown into the water with a .22 rifle.  Sometimes we'll catch some unsuspecting snakes basking in the sun on the mud and give them 'lead poisoning.'  This lazy afternoon we brought some fishing poles and some worms we dug up from the compost pile in the garden to see if we might catch some fish.

Anything biting?

When rains swell the gully, the fish swim out of the bayou, traveling upstream and the fishing can be pretty good.  On this day, however, it was not.  The previous day we had hooked a big catfish, brought him to the surface and then he promptly broke the line. We came back to try again, but on this day we were only successful in drowning some worms.

Our farm in Oberlin sits on either side of a gully similar to this one.  I can remember setting out a big fish trap in it each time it rained, catching different kinds of fish and turtles that would swim in and then be unable to get out of the funnels in the trap. It's really amazing to think how fast the gullies swell with water after a big rain and then how fast the waters recede.  You can see the water line 6 or 8 feet up in the trees on the bank if you look closely in the photos above and below.  

Oftentimes the water drops so suddenly that it will leave small perch stranded in puddles in the road.  When I was a young boy, I'd walk along the roadside and watch the iridescence of sun perch flipping in the shallow water in the sunshine, with the fishy smell heavy in the humid summer air.

Muddy water

If fishing isn't successful, the day isn't wasted, you can always throw rocks at turtles or snakes that inhabit the muddy water.  We ended up snagging a line on an underwater obstruction and lost a hook, sinker and bobber, but Benjamin was undeterred and claimed a hook, sinker, and bobber that a previous fisherman had lost in a tree (and didn't have the industriousness that Benjamin had to retrieve it), so it was a 'wash.'

Skipping rocks off the water

Our stringer of fish was fish-less, but we had an enjoyable time nonetheless.  

A bridge too far?

We loaded up the pickup truck and drove the mile or so back east down the gravel road before life became civilized once again when the gravel road converted into blacktop.  I have an unproven theory that the pharmaceutical industry could see a huge drop in anti-depressant sales if more people would take an hour or so out of their busy schedules and drive out on a country road with no set agenda but to kill a little time.  

I hear her voice in the morning hour she calls me,

The radio reminds me of my home far away,

And driving down the road I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday.

Country road, take me home, to the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home, country road... - John Denver 1971