I am no stranger to gravel roads. With the passing of my mom, I cannot help but travel back in my mind to the original gravel road upon which my siblings and I learned so many lessons, a road outside of Grand Ridge, Illinois. It is the gravel road named after our dad – the John Landers Road – who served as the township road grader and supervisor for several years. It is the gravel road where our farmhouse – painted in barn red at our mom’s request – stood tall with 3 stories. It is the gravel road that ran parallel to the “timber” where we spent hours reading, exploring, and laughing along the creek as we sailed homemade rafts and practiced shooting bb guns.
It was a simple time. Hours were spent by me in the timber with a book or a drawing pad, exploring the old 1800s cemetery, gazing at gravestones of whole families buried together beneath a buckeye tree. As kids, we would examine the marks made along the bank from Conestoga wagons where our creek provided a shallow way to ford the nearby Illinois River. It was a timber where we had our own Field of Dreams – a legal-sized baseball diamond Dad lovingly built for hours of play for his kids and those in the area. Bicycles would make their way on the gravel road to play on that field that Mom equipped with professional bases and equipment. It kept everyone busy and out of trouble. I must admit, I was merely an observer – sports were not my thing as I preferred a book to a bat.
Back then, my gravel road was a place where life lessons were learned. A place where my brother taught me to drive a stick shift. A place where hedge apple fights with our cousins took place at the bridge south of the house. It was a road where one hot August day, my dad veered me off the road through the ditch to stand in the cornfield that towered over my shoulders. He had me stand there in that early evening and listen. Obedient, I did and what I heard were little squeaks in the field. He asked me if I heard the sounds and I said yes. “Do you know what that is?” he asked. When I shook my head, he responded, “That is the sound of the corn growing!” To this day, there is no sound that compares.
That gravel road was one where we road our bikes around the mile to wave to neighbors or to stop to see Romaine who made the best homemade donuts in the world. She kept a kettle of oil on her stove to heat up in a moment’s notice to treat any visitors to one of her tasty treats. It was a road that boasted a rundown schoolhouse similar to one my dad attended grades 1-8. He liked to tell people he graduated from Oxford as that was the name of his one-room school. 8th grade was his last formal schooling as was the case for his 3 brothers – they were needed to work on the farm. But Dad was well read – never missed reading a daily newspaper or a Louis L'Amour western. The only time I saw my dad cry was when John Wayne won an academy award. Dad was a cowboy by heart.
Our upbringing was a simple time lived on a gravel road. When things got too crazy in the house, Mom would tell us to “go out and get the stink off of you!” I never knew what that really meant until I had kids of my own. Mom also was our driving force as we “walked” beans, hoeing out the weeds. The rows were ¾ of a mile long and when we go to the end, she would always say, “One more round!” We spent hours doing this chore, and one year as our reward, we received a small TV for the kitchen for which we were thrilled.
As we grew and left, the farmhouse was always our respite – my two brothers, sister, and me – a place where we knew that no matter how crazy our life was, when we returned, we would be greeted by a loving mom and dad with open arms and a hug. Mom would prepare her homemade soup with dumpling noodles or thin pancakes, and Dad would sing or grab me for a quick 2-step while whistling or yodeling a melody before returning to his chores. Upon our return to the farm, my sister, Mom, and I would lay across a big bed, laughing and telling stories.
A porch extended in the front of that loving home. It was a place where we sat in the evenings talking and sharing ideas – Dad and Mom in chairs and kids on the swing or the porch wall. In my school years, I would curl up with a book on the front porch swing and dream of a life beyond the farm, seeking to know more of this world than this simple farm. Little did I know that a farm and a gravel road would be what I sought and provide for my own family. That gravel road and farmhouse were simple places we knew only love would surround us, a place along my original gravel road.
