We seem to have forgotten why we have roads. We seem to think that roads and routes and pathways are made to get someplace. That’s just not true. They are to be someplace.
When I was a working child growing up in the 50s and 60s, we lived in the sunlight at the bottom of a long country road just one sharp corner away from the center of town.
We were happy to share the faded pavement with ducks and smug-looking dogs and tree branches and bicycles and the rows of milkweed pods we strung from gutter to gutter while we crouched in the woods waiting for the occasional friendly car to come along, respectfully share a taste of the road with us, and repopulate the milkweeds.
After all, we knew what the road was for. It was a place to jump on pogo sticks. It was a place to be.
But things have changed. The sunlit cars are driving cheerfully toward a new century. They know where they are going. Why make a case for the road itself, when the end of the road seems to be in reach?
[Note: Most of this was plagiarized. Luckily, I wrote the original. See “Hiding in the Mailbox” in Small Town Tales for more about roads.]
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