the old dirt road

From days gone by, the summer trips to my maternal grandparents bring about the most vivid memories of my childhood. These visits were our family’s annual two-week vacation. What better retreat than to wonder about the vast beauty of God’s creation and to savor the serenity it brought? What better vacation than to visit with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and lots of cousins?

They lived near Erin, Tennessee on Green Acres, a 600-something acre farm. It rested among gently sloping hills, in a serene and secluded community known as Long Branch. To reach the farm, we turned off of a state road onto a narrow dirt and rock road. An abundance of lovely Black-eyed Susans greeted us along the roadside and like a beacon, pointed the way to Green Acres. The old dirt road carried us around gentle curves, thru woods, past fields, by a one room schoolhouse, past a farm with peacocks and pigs, over small wooden bridges above rippling creeks, and by an uncle’s house.

My Mom and her sister and brothers attended school in that one room schoolhouse, now standing weathered and in disrepair. They walked along that old dirt road to school. It seemed to take an eternity to get from the beginning of “granddaddy’s road” to the driveway of the old, two-story, white frame farmhouse.

I loved that old dirt road, and its Black-eyed Susans. I have several clumps of these flowers growing in my own backyard garden, just behind the gold fish pond. The Black-eyed Susans are a lifelong reminder of the summer trips to my grandparents farm. These are cherished memories of days gone by.