The Fork in the Road

My daddy grew up at the fork in the road. Right in front of his family home, the road forks. The main road out to the highway has been paved for as long as I can remember, and it continues on to the left side of the fork. The right fork was a gravel road in my childhood. A bumpy rock road that was painful for this tender footed town girl to walk down barefoot while my cousins ran along paying no mind whatsoever to the sharp rocks poking into the soles of their feet. About 100 yards down this gravel road is my Aunt Bonnie’s house, where I spent many a summer day jumping on the trampoline, watching TV with my cousins, playing with the ton of loose dogs that ran around there, and just generally being a kid. Some of my best childhood memories come from the fork in the road, and coming back to visit always takes me back to those times.

Our family – Dad, Mom, Cindy, and me – is one of the few that moved off and didn’t settle down here in my dad’s hometown. Most of his siblings lived within a stone’s throw of Granny’s house, so my cousins all grew up together and everyone was always in and out of Granny’s on a daily basis. When we came home it was sort of like being thrown to the wolves (I mean that in a good way, if you can even begin to fathom that). My dad had 8 adult siblings, most of whom were married, and almost all of them had at least 2 kids. Holidays at Granny and PaPa’s could get pretty crazy when everyone was there! The dining table would always be loaded down with all kinds of food. In fact, I remember times when there was too much food for the table and it would spill over onto the china hutch or whatever flat surface might be handy. Only the oldest adults were allowed to sit and eat at the table. All of us younguns’ were expected to find a vacant spot (usually on the floor) and dive into to our plates. I’ve eaten many a meal on the living room floor, the floor of the other front room, or the front porch. Ever eaten a meal while sitting on a porch swing? It’s kind of hard to balance a plate, balance yourself, and keep the cats, dogs, and babies out of the drink that sitting at your feet, but it can be done!

There is a whole clump of us cousins that are very close to the same age, so we would always hang out and play together. Most of them were close as siblings, and I was painfully shy. This resulted in my often feeling left out when everyone was together, but with just my Aunt Bonnie’s kids and/or my Uncle Dale’s kids, I usually felt right at home. Running up the road to Dale’s to play, or down the road to Bonnie’s to watch a movie or jump on the trampoline was big fun. There was rarely a need to ask permission to go anywhere. As long as Mom or Dad knew who I was with it was all good.

When I was about 9 we moved to Fort Polk, Louisiana, only about 4 hours from PaPa and Granny’s house. This was the closest we ever lived to them, and we made many weekend road trips to visit with family. I loved spending time sitting on the porch swing listening to the adults tell stories about growing up and about various family members, many of whom I never met and probably never will. There is something magical about sitting on a porch on a hot summer night as darkness creeps in around you. Bugs buzzing around the porch lights. Frogs croaking down on Uncle Dale’s pond. PaPa’s and Dale’s hunting dogs baying and barking from their pens. Crickets chirping. And the stars shining through the darkness. Oh, the darkness! It was magical to be sitting on the porch, but don’t ask me to walk down to Bonnie’s. Oh no! That darkness was DARK! Pitch-black-can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark. And I was scared of the dark! Even with a flashlight in hand, I’d run like the wind between Granny’s and Bonnie’s if I had to go, and I’d never go alone! There was usually at least one equally scared and giggly cousin to run down the road with.

Walking down the road from Bonnie’s to Granny’s this past Friday, so many memories came flooding back. The smell of pine, the ever-present humidity, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the dogs trotting along behind us. It’s all part of who I am, a part that I rarely think about until I walk down that road again. Even though I’ve never lived at the fork in the road, it’s still home, and I imagine it always will be.