A rural treasure

You can't choose where you are born and that's a fact. Every now and then I think about that and am thankful that the good Lord saw fit to allow me to be born and raised in one of the greatest places in the world. Oh sure, if you are one of them high falutin' folks, you probably look down your narcissistic nose at me and where I come from. That's okay, I'm glad not everyone has the same tastes because if'n we did, we would all be bunched up together in one spot.

I'm right proud of my neck of the woods with all of it's hills, creeks, ponds, barns, fences, and railroad tracks. When I was a young feller I never once thought about going to a far off place or visiting exotic locations because in my mind I lived in the most wonderful place on earth. Once I stepped through the back screen door of my parent's little 4-room cinder-block house my possibilities were endless and my imagination was unlimited. I could head off in any direction, North, South, East, or West and discover the most fascinating things.

If I headed south I would cross the road, climb over the fence, cross through the cow pasture, balance myself over the railroad tie bridge that spanned Roseberry creek, and I would be standing on a long stretch of railroad tracks. I could spend hours walking the rails, picking up shiny rocks, looking for discarded railroad spikes, it was a virtual wonderland. I would make my way down the tracks and end up at the railroad trestle that crossed the creek where cows would gather to drink. I would jump in the water to cool off on a hot August afternoon. Or drop a fishing line from a cane pole baited with a wiggly red worm or kernel of corn. I spent many hours of my life in that spot. We never went to a public swimming pool because we always had the creek to play in. Besides, swimming pools didn't have rocks, snakes, fish, and crawdads like the creek did, which was all the things necessary to occupy my mind.

Behind my parent's house was the 11-acres that my papaw Chesney owned. All I had to do was walk through the backyard and through the homemade wooden gate that my dad had built in the fence row. I would cross the wide flat patch of ground that used to bubble when it rained. Dad always said there were sink holes under the ground. Once I passed that spot I would be in the woods walking the worn trails that we used to get back and forth from our house to the large garden that dad shared with papaw on top of the hill. It was in those woods that all of us kids would spend hours on end playing and camping out. It was far enough away from my parents house to feel like we were a long way off but yet not so far that we couldn't hear the gravels underneath car tires if someone came to visit. If we were needed at the house my parent's could just walk out in the backyard and yell real loud. If we didn't answer back they would blow the car horn and you better believe we would come running then!

I was fortunate that most of the houses in my neighborhood belonged to family members. I could walk forever through yards and woods without the worry of somebody getting mad that I was trespassing. Of course trespassing was one of my favorite activities anyway. My best friend Kevin lived just a mile up the road and we either road our bikes or walked the road or railroad tracks to get to each others houses. We had the best childhood imaginable. How I wish my children could experience what it was like to live in those times. We never worried about being abducted or molested or anything like that. I guess it was the age of innocence.

Well, I'm not sure why I wrote all of that. Just had a lot of stuff on my mind and thought I'd jot it down. One of these days I'll probably be too old to remember all of these wonderful memories and I'll have to sit around reading about it.