The Road To Barlow Bend

Here’s another excerpt from my book. It describes the trip to visit my Great Grandmother Claude when I was a child. Hope you enjoy.

The road to Barlow Bend was magical to me. There was a creek where we would sometimes stop so I could play in the cool, clear water as it ran underneath the old wooden bridge. All the vegetation on the sides of the road and down the bank to the creek always appeared a reddish color, covered in a fine red dust, unless it had just rained. The old bridge was narrow so only one car could pass over it at a time. When two cars would meet, just as they were about to cross the bridge, one driver would wave and motion “you go first” followed by the other driver waving “no, you go first.” Eventually one of the cars would cross so both cars could move on and folks could get on about their business. I can remember the smell of the old wooden crisscross posts as I played in the creek running around them. It was a creosote smell.

A wet creosote smell.

It kind of burned your nose, but not so bad that it would spoil my hidden fortress. It was cool and shaded under that bridge. It felt a little bit scary but safe all at the same time. I loved the rumble of the cars as they would occasionally pass over, leaving a trail of red dust behind them.

Bloomp, bloomp. There were always two bloomps as the cars went over. I wondered where they were going. I hoped their trip was as exciting as mine.

The big limestone hills that lined the creek were perfect for climbing after playing in the water, once you got past the slippery, green slimy stuff that grew down next to the water.

There was a treasure of fossils hidden in those big limestone hills. I dug shells and all kinds of things out of that limestone. My favorite was a whole sand dollar. It amazed my young mind to think there was once an ocean in Barlow Bend! Claude said it was back when she was a little girl. And that arrowhead I found in front of her house, along the edge of the freshly scraped red dirt road, was one the Indians shot at her when she was a teenager. I was fascinated at how she could have seen the ocean in Barlow Bend and been shot by an Indian too! What an amazing life she had lived!

More to come. From the mind of me.