Give me that country side of life

It’s hard to believe that I haven’t lived in the country for 25 years. When I say “the country” I mean in the sticks, rural free delivery, the outback. It does not mean I haven’t lived in the U.S. of A., but sometimes I wonder if it is the same country that I have been living in all these years.

For two years and then another year after a year in the city, I lived nine miles outside of Nacogdoches, Texas, on about 200 or so acres of mostly pasture land. Since I was in college most of the time I lived there the place was just right for parties, big parties, big normal college parties where you would do things like  empty your guns into a couch and then build bonfires out of the couch, then walk on a log thrown on top of the burning couch, or sit on the roof or in my late friend Waldo’s case, fall off the roof. No the fall from the roof did not kill him. He died of cancer about 14 years later.

I went on a photo safari today during my drive in the country to my old haunts and to downtown Nacogdoches where I once worked as a fireman. Unfortunately, my old digital camera seems to be giving up the ghost. I’d say that is quite appropriate since I’m visiting my old haunts. I took a bunch of pictures, including those of where I used to live. Wouldn’t you know that those I took of “the farm” were absent.

It is impossible to convey how much I miss country life. True, I haven’t lived in any humongous cities since I left college. Well, I did spend some time, equaling maybe a year and a half in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. But mostly I have lived in cities the size of the one I am living now. A city of about 115,000 with a metro population of about 250-300 thousand people. Still that doesn’t even compare because when I lived in the country it was outside a city of about 30,000 people. Whether all of this is relative, I can’t tell you.

All I know is the country out toward Woden and Kingtown seemed on a beautiful semi-cloudy spring day as even more beautiful than I remembered it. I drove down what used to be called “CCC Road.” Whether it was trailblazed by the Civilian Conservation Corps I couldn’t tell. I can tell you a couple tales about that road.

First, after I graduated from college I came back to Nacogdoches and had intended to stay with a friend for the weekend but that friend wasn’t around and I couldn’t get in touch with some of my other friends for some reason. This was, of course, before everyone had cell phones. So I ended up out toward where I lived and then pulled onto a little trail off CCC Road into the woods a little ways. I stopped there and spent the night. I think my car seat completely reclined all the way back. The next morning I woke up and saw this huge dog, something like a St. Bernard, staring at me through my window. It wasn’t hostile or anything. Just kind of matter of fact.

Another time, leaving out all the gory details, Waldo and I were traveling into town from the farm. He lived there for about a year before moving to the Dallas area and then I moved in. We were in his little Tercel hatchback. Ironic, sense he had complained that the little Ranger pickup he had before could carry a payload of maybe … “crackers.”

The entire area near the other end of CCC Road had been clearcut for timber. Since they cut down or “harvest” pine trees after25-30 years, it was no coincidence that the same area was clearcut today.

On with my story, for whatever reason, I suppose it makes trees grow better or something, I don’t remember. But the people who owned that land that had been cut over planted just about the whole thing in watermelons. I mean, it was a major watermelon farm. Big trucks pulling what Waldo described as “rattle trailers” (’cause they rattled) would be going down all the roads around Watermelon World at all hours of the night. Also, for some reason, the dirt on CCC Road near all the melons had turned to what I believe — from my two semesters of Geology — as being some of the area’s Sparta sand. It was very difficult to negotiate even on the best days driving through those sands. And the night we attempted to go to town we got stuck in what I had dubbed “The Moon.”

We went back to Waldo’s, later my place, and called a wrecker. The wrecker guy said he’d be out. Asked what it cost, he said: “That’ll be a $50 bill, Bubba.”

On through CCC I traveled this afternoon and then shortly after turning onto Lacyville Road, I then turned on another partially dirt, partially gravel, partially clay road called Saint’s Rest Road, so named for the missionary Baptist church about a mile from Lacyville Road. I don’t know if I had ever actually gotten out and looked around the church before but I did today.

The wooden building is a simple, but fine little structure. The kind of building most folks who would like a little church in the country, would want. It reminds me of that old hymn, or I guess that’s what you would call it, “The Church in the Wildwood,” altlhough the little brown church or the song wasn’t brown at Saint’s Rest. It was white.

Trees out in front of the church sport moss, at  least  a few do. They say moss gathers on trees on the side pointed toward a river. In this case it is true because the Angelina River isn’t too far away.

I got back almost to pavement after driving onto Pine Flat Road, to what eventually becomes a Texas farm-to-market road. As I rounded the curve right near where the dirt turns into pavement,  a big old county dump truck was parked with a load of asphalt. Two county prisoners in their black-striped uniforms where shoveling asphalt.  I wanted badly to, at least try, to take their picture but decided against it.

One thing I recall from riding down these country roads this afternoon — aside from all the good memories — was how serene I felt. It was if I didn’t have a care in the world. That was even the case when my co-worker called me and told me she was going to have to change schedules with me next week and I would be out for evaluations with my boss for two days on Monday and Tuesday instead of Wednesday and Thursday. Who cares? I didn’t have any red lights at every intersection or cars that were rolling boom boxes or the constant hum of noise coming from the interstate.

It has been so long I don’t know how I’d adjust living in the country again. I remember after moving back after being gone just that one year and it freaked me out for awhile listening to all the crickets outside at night. But if there was anyway to make it happen, to still make a living or to make a better living, I might have  to try one more tour in the country before I get too old and have to once again live near folks.

The drive today just told me what I already knew. I really miss the country.