Driving To Big Knob – 2

March 12, 2010

Unlike many things that progression and population have changed, at that point when driving past our Aunt Liz’s house, it too looked the same as always; low slung single story with red and black shingles. A pine tree grove mixed with birch on one side; huge hill backyard; we used to race down its slick dead grass in flattened cardboard boxes.

The road back when was called Rural Route something or other; maybe FC road now perhaps. I’ve traveled that same road a few more times not too many years ago when relocating there for a short stay at cousin Johnny’s family fort. I moved again to an enormous work space/art community; a defunct brewery in a big city fifty miles away.

The road to our grandparent’s house was found off the main road that entered and quickly exited the tiny town in a blink. After exiting the highway we continued to travel on a road with less traffic. We then had to make a right turn somewhat in the middle of the small town.

Traveling up a long hill past the towns’ well manicured cemetery driving further still we experienced the up and down, down and up curving, dipping, twisting, two lane country roads. Sparsely placed homes with working and not vehicles hid in dense forests of green.

Roads seemed like carnival ribbon rides no big city would ever think of designing for residents other than in their horizontal and vertical patterns of convenience that were either numbered or alphabetically arranged for simplicity. Horses and buggies were an easier glide.

By this time the tiny tykes from the likes of a big city knew they were ‘in the country.’ We smelled familiar aromas of farm animals or freshly cut hay. The broad blue and clearer skies opened their arms letting our eyes roam free in widened spaces with no traces of towering towers of overpowering buildings or spewing smoke stacks.

Although our own home in those early years had trees and Mother Nature entangled with man’s old and new square puzzle developments of cement, red bricks and noisy traffic, this scenery was just the opposite; a much slower paced life. One could feel the release of a hurried city life melt into meandering rivers; a sail with no motor.

Two cars our parents owned, in different years were a tan 1952 Mercury, and a 1956 gray and white Chevrolet BelAir. Windows were opened all the way at this slower speed of summer to allow the stale imprisoned air of the highway to escape. The forests fragrance entered our nostrils as we breathed deep filling our lungs to inhale everything we could never smell in the exhaust of a city’s fumigations.

One hill turned into the next one, and the next one. We often recogised each pasture, each house, or dilapidated barn with a familiar everywhere tobacco signature painting. Houses with histories of generations past still looked the same, never seeming to get older.

The country air was refreshing, the views were too. We entered and revisited another world; a familiar world we were allowed to witness only one week a year. By now we were on the smallest, narrowest two lane road. Our car engine was the only sound that shook the quiet of standing forest trees surrounding us as familiar and returning friends.

We entered the beautiful church of nature and its inhabitants we’d never experience in the city where we came from; except I was the only child born here. For many years and countless times in between I longed to return to live in this place. The feel of country is still in mmy blood. I love being in cities but cityscapes never really felt like home. Cities are just short visits in between deep breaths of country’s earth.

Our ride continued through the thick cathedral of trees. Their top branches appeared to caress each other to form hundreds of concave canopies whose singular purpose was to cover and enfold us within their protection as we approached our grandparent’s farm. A wide diversity of birds sang separate mmelodies in harmonies of welcome.

Quiet sounds of summer breezes rustled thousands of leaves in forests I’ll always remember. I can still hear the crunch of our slower moving cars tires crushing brittle branches in the road as we passed each tree that let them fall. It was almost as if they were presented specifically for us like they were greeting newcomers celebrated with colourful feasts after landing on the shores of newer unchartered discoveries.

We witnessed more views of odd shaped rocks both large and small lined up sporadically from decades of the slow moving streams with life that paralleled the graveled road leading up to our grandparent’s driveway. The car and its passengers gradually slowed, almost to a stop to circumnavigate the sharp turn into the widened bottom entry.

The big rock graveled road was steep. We could hear the engine revolutions change with a slow movement of the gas pedal and the addition of more power. The gravel gave way with a sluggish crunch beneath the four wheels as the car slowly grabbed and clawed its way upward climbing closer and closer to the finish line at the top.

On both sides of the manmade pathway were raspberry bushes where a few days later mom would hold our hands to find them again while walking down the steep grade to pick one by one by one for grandma’s warm and served right out of the oven homemade pie.

Along certain parts of the twisting driveway grew elderberry bushes. Grandma would ask us to pick those for her too. She’d give all three of us little baskets to carry the small jewels of taste treats. With each handful squeezed in her little kitchen tool with no motor she would concoct more of her amazing tasting juice. A juice I’ve never found plentiful in any grocery store, tasted much of nor had any that good since. The juice; very thick with a heavy earthy flavor of that specific tasting fruit grown from pure dirt. The same dirt I’d eat tied to a tree.

Our eight hour trip was almost over. Reaching the top of the hill aptly called Big Knob, a new world opened our eyes to an old view. The two story farmhouse where eleven brothers and sisters were born and where two died too soon always felt welcoming and warmed with its advancing age. The car finally drifted to a slow stop. We were home.

The rough gray and black shingles that covered the whole house after too many years unchanged were tattered. More than enough were still in good condition with only a few missing or out of place. Grand pap and Grandma were always out in front greeting us with wide grin hellos. Different dogs were theirs; a German shepherd or big white haired Shep stood loyally with them in the same welcoming spots.

The big faded red barns to the right were also weathered and shabbily worn with age. Grand pap used to be the local butcher. He and his sons who helped in later years butchered most neighbors’ animals including his own. Pre-ordered cuts of meat, smoked not uncommon.

His and Grandma’s farming knowledge with the help of all hands born to assist fed everyone as best they could until the days of finding food at a local dump was not only necessary to satiate hunger pangs but a time of an age old survival during war and years of famine brought on by not enough rain to raise a pea or to keep the self built with local rocks spring house running and cool.

Living off the land was never easy for most families; then or even now. Grand pap was also a trained baker. He had his own flourishing bakery and store at one point; until it burned down. His breads and baked goods were legendary as locals of the area emptied his shelves.

The insides of his barns had stored and displayed much of that equipment and more. Old, dark blood stains were easily recognisable on the uneven floors of cracked over time cement. Hooks to hang the slaughtered animals were stationary; stilled behind the closed doors.

A family of squealing pigs was fed in one barn, a cow in another. Only one cow now called Betsie, when years ago their children used to mind and watch the herd while being bored to death; or so they said. Playing hooky from school was easy to hide from; chores knot as hard

Several carts that still carried corn and us on top for the ride were parked nearby. The old water pump on its ancient pedestal just outside the kitchen door was still being used. It stood as proud as a weathered sculpture; a salute to a long family tradition that memories will return to as it continues to rust year by year with age until….

At the end of our vacations, their house was usually the last to be seen. As we left they never stopped waving as we drove down the hill and out of sight. While leaving the same way we arrived, we waved frantically and cried with our goodbyes, “We’ll miss you Grandma and Grand pap!” Big Knob - The taste of Freedom was love.