Red clay is the kind of dirt we have around here in a great many
places. There are some sandy areas, and
grey clay dirt, but most of the area I grew up in was red clay. It brings its own set of challenges.... when
it's wet; it's like potter's clay that's almost soupy wet. When it's dry, it can cause a cloud of dust
behind a car that will swallow a tall tree.
The dust gets on everything, from the trees and yards on the side of the
road, to the cars that drive up and down it.
I can remember when Dad or Granddad would drive us somewhere; they would
always go a certain speed so as to outrun the thick cloud of red dust behind
us. There was no avoiding it, but you
could outrun it in a car... but you never wanted to be the car behind that car. The problem
was, the faster you went, the more dust you threw up behind the car.
Our front yard was small compared to our backyard, and it always stayed dusty from cars going up and down the road, but
the house blocked it from reaching the back yard. So after a long dry spell, even the house
started having a red tinge to it on the front.
Cars were always dusty and dirty, but you didn’t let Daddy catch you
“writing on the car with your finger”, or you’d end up having to wash the car. Washing the car, when you live on a dusty
dirt road, is a futile thing, and we kids were aware of the fact that our hard labor was really for nothing... it stays
clean until the very next time you'd take it anywhere. No one had garages back then, so all the dust
always settled on everything, cars in the driveway included.
Red clay is a special kind of awful when it's wet. Gummy sorta, like wet soupy potter's clay,
and a kind of red that stains anything that's anywhere close to white. Socks were always to be sorted between those
allowed to be worn when you were gonna be outside, and those to be saved for times
when you wanted to look your best... like school or church. Mom went to great pains to try and get the
red dirt and mud out of white things, but it never completely worked. All Moms were intimate with the challenges,
and often shared any secrets they came up with that would rid the clothes of
that red tinge.
This was the way the roads were when I was growing up. Only the main roads into town were paved,
everything else was gravel and dirt. Today,
it’s rare to find a dirt road, though there are still a few shooting off the
road that goes by Mom’s house. Some of
the dirt roads that were around when Mom was growing up have long since ceased
to be used, and trees and brush have swallowed them up now. Other road beds have changed to straighten
out some of the curves, or more accurately follow property lines when the old
dirt roads became state property, and maintained by the state.
The dirt roads around here were especially difficult to deal with when it
rained. The bus that took us to school
came by our house from the direction that caused its door (in the mornings) to
be on the other side of the road. This
meant that if it had been raining, we had to tiptoe/hop across the muck and
mire of red clay, trying desperately not to get our shoes too muddy while
getting on the bus. In the afternoons,
the door was on the same side of the road as the driveway, so easy-peasy to
give it a quick jump and then we were safe from the mud onto the gravels of the
driveway.
Sometimes when I ride the roads around here, I imagine what it was like
back before everything was paved. Some
of that I can remember for myself, but pretty much, all the roads were
established by the time I came along.
Mom tells me that there was a section of the local roads near Snow Camp,
NC that was called "The Old Plank Road". It was named that for obvious reasons...
there were literally planks on the road in an attempt to make it sturdier than
the red clay muddy roads that are all around these parts. But did you ever stop to think how it was
that the roads got there to start with.
I have added an appendix page to this blog for sharing some of my favorite
poems and quotes, and the like. Take a
moment and go read the poem I added today called "The Crooked Path" (linked here). The poem talks about how a calf left a
trail... which was followed by wagons and horses, until one day that same
crooked switchback trail was a road. I
think of this poem sometimes as I'm riding the roads around here. It's not that far-fetched a tale to think
that some of these country roads started as game trails, which were followed by
the Native Americans stalking the game, and later by wagons as the area was
settled by the pioneers. It is extremely
common to find out that they were mere wagon tracks for many many years before
becoming a road of any sort. The more
houses that a wagon track road ran near, the more “traffic” the road saw....
and as years passed, the road became a main road used by anyone in the
area. In fact, the church that I grew up
in currently faces away from the paved road that goes by it because the road,
back in the 1800s, that went by the church was on the other side of the
church. When the church was first built,
the church faced the road, as most churches and houses do. Today it stands with its back to the
road.
There are two main roads into the little country village I live near. One is fairly flat, gentle turns through lush
farmland, the ground rising and falling over small hills as it winds its way
through the countryside. The other is
steep hills, dipping down to cross branches and creeks with a bumpity bump then
up the next steep hill, around some winding curves, and dipping down again to
cross another creek. One road seems
typical of how the road crews sculpt the roadways nowadays... the other seems
to be a throwback to days of yore. I can
only imagine teams of horses and oxen pulling hard to make it up those hills
before it was paved, and farmers having to lay hard on the brake to make it
down the next hill. Wooden one lane
bridges would have crossed those creeks... creaking and rattling as the wagon
wheels slowly thump-thump-thumped their way across. Going the few miles that we travel today in a
few minutes would have been an all day trip.
But as I travel that hilly, windy road, I can almost hear the squeaking wagon
wheels, the huffing of the horses and the clop-clop of their big hooves as they
pulled their loads there and back again.
Life was slower back then, and dirt roads were something people were
grateful for because they were better than the ruts of a wagon road.
Oddly, there’s a part of me that misses the old dirt roads. They were not pleasant to deal with at the
time, but they were a sign of a slower life... of peacefulness, when everything
seemed right, and life wasn’t nearly as confusing. The roads today even sound different... today
it’s just the hum of tires on pavement... but the old country roads had gravels
and the gravel on the road crunched as you drove over it. My daughter still misses the sound of gravel
crunching.
The next time you drive through the country, turn off on some of the side
roads... find an old dirt road... slow down, roll your windows down, listen to
the gravel crunch.... Stop your car for a minute... Close your eyes, and
breathe deep. You just might hear the
squeaking wagon wheels and the clop-clop of horses' hooves...
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This forest path becomes a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
- Excerpt from "The Crooked Path, by Sam Walter Foss -
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