Taking the back road home.

Today I took the back road home. I had finished all my town chores and was feeling in a mellow mood. On the radio Dolly Parton was singing one of my favorite songs.  So when I came to the junction I turned right instead of traveling straight ahead.

We take the back road when the creek is up.  It is very handy to have an alternate way out when the weather isn't co-operative.  But sometimes we opt to just take a little different way either home or to town.

What is so special about this back road detour?  For one, I enjoy seeing the birds perched on the telephone wires because they are different from our hilltop birds.  Scissor-tailed flycatchers, hawks, and other open grassland birds are always waiting for a meal to dart or crawl by.

I love to see my neighbor's fields full of rich green grass and sleek well-fed cows.  I love his straight fence rows and sturdy gates.  I appreciate all the hard work he does making his farm a pleasure to drive by.

I always look for another friend's home place, now long abandoned but full of memories.  Sometimes the road narrows and crosses close in front of a house or two.  I know most of these people and they know me.  Makes you feel good to be near people who care about you.

But the best thing about taking the back road home is that I can poke along just as slow as I please.  Perhaps I see a flower that I can't identify without pausing a minute and getting a closer look.  Sometimes I just glory in the waving grass and far-off purple shadowed hills.  Sometimes I just like to see the wind turn the leaves in the oak tree this way and that.

Down the road further it narrows into a special spot where you can see the view of Caney Mountain through the trees.  The way is rougher here but taking my time is not a problem.  I can drive and look at the same time.

What a joy it is to have a choice of how to go home.  And sometimes the back road is the best.

38

Thirty-eight.  A nice round number.  Not an extraordinary number, but of sufficient importance in our life to make note of this month of May.  Why?  Because 38 years ago we drove our red pickup into this small Missouri town,unpacked our worldly goods and set up housekeeping.  Andy,  Me.  And little Nina.

We bought the Grandma Harlin house, up on the hill, from Harve and Cora Blisard.  While we were remodeling  we lived across the street, in the old Jim Hale house.  Skeeter and Faye were our neighbors to the west.  Pete and Virginia Klineline lived down from us to the east.  All in all, a nice place to put down roots.

Erna Johnson came down the hill that day and introduced herself.  Said she had heard that a new family with a little girl had moved into town.  Just wanted to say hi and invite us to come and see her sometime.  And we did...many times.  Loved visiting and talking to Erna.  Arles and Ivy Walker lived across the street and up one house.  Arles came over, welcomed us to town, and said that his grandson's family attended church at Center Point, out in the country and he would be sure and tell Sandy, Gerald's wife, that there was a new family needing an invitation to church.  And invite us she did.  We loved that little church, on that windy country road, and all the people who went there.

One warm morning we hiked down to Skeeters for breakfast.  And there sat Pattie Strong in a booster chair, eating pancakes.  Nina and Pattie hit it off right away.  And they are still friends.  Nina was a shy child.  She stayed attached to my knee for at least the first two years we lived in Gainesville.  Try as they might, grownups couldn't get her to talk to them.  But, kids, now that was a different matter.  She would watch them playing for awhile and then walk up and start in with whatever was going on.  For part of the time before she went to school she attended Mother Goose Daycare and made many lifelong friends there.

My first order of business was finding a teaching job.  We had been camping and I didn't have anything close to good interview clothes that were clean or ironed.  Clad in jeans and a  T-shirt, I went to ask Benton Breeding if he might have a job for me.  Sure he did.  And he needed me right away since Joe Cissna was moving up to teach high school special education, taking Mr. Beach's place after his retirement that spring.  Signed a contract that day.

And bingo.  Everyone in town knew us.  But, as usual, we didn't have idea one who they were.  People would come up to me in the the grocery store and introduce themselves.  They were anxious to make us feel at home.

I guess it took.  Here we are 38 years later.  Of course, we no longer live IN Gainesville.  But it is still our town.  Wouldn't change it for the world.

And in comes May....

Sunrise, sunset, noontide and evening.  Green hills clothed in new garments....soft wind blowing the growing leaves.  Mist in the valley.  Bird call at break of day.  Fresh scent of some exotic flower in the air.  What is it?  I search my memory and it finds a blank.  But I enjoy it anyway.  

Full moon lights the night and makes it look like day.  Driving down the road we shut off the headlights.  Can we see the road still?  No, but it is an eerie feeling to see the sky so bright and the earth so dark.

May has come to my hilltop home.  I revel in the beauty of the season.  Spring brings out the best in the Ozarks.  It is a reward for icy winter snows and frigid winds.  If you can make it through the winter, you get to experience Mother Nature in all her glory.

Turkeys are gobbling.  Fish are biting.  Gardens are being readied for planting.  And the constant mowing of grass.....that is the challenge.  It grows overnight.

But I'll not complain.  Each precious day is a jewel to take out and show off to the world.  See what I am blessed to be a part of?  And I promise myself to enjoy each day....for May has come.