If roads could talk ~ October 29, 2003

David Heiller

It’s funny how a road can hold so many memories A road is, after all, just a road: But people do have their favorites, and that applies to roads as well as grandkids.

A good walk down the road.

The road to Freeburg—State Highway 249—from Highway 26 is one of those. Cindy and I used to pipe-dream about buying the farm from Florence Sheriff back when we were first married, We still say, “There’s our house,” when we go by.

Going past the Freeburg church is special too, and better yet, stopping to say hello to all those relatives that I never knew. I wish they could talk back,.

I like to look down the road and across Crooked Creek to where Grandma Heiller was born.

And of course Little Miami stands like a pot of gold at the end of a gravel rainbow. How many fine meals have we had there with Mom and Grandma and all the brothers and sisters and cousins and nephews and nieces?

County Road 3 holds many good memories for me too.

I traveled it to high school for five years, and before that to sporting events and concerts to watch my siblings.

Now, after a 30 year hiatus, I’m taking it to work every day:

I doubt that I’ll ever get tired of how beautiful the drive is. Those big farms with their Harvestore silos and contoured fields of alfalfa and corn. That interesting round barn.

You can see the lights of the football field from about five miles away. Seeing those lights when I was a kid going to watch my brother Glenn play was really exciting. Caledonia seemed like New York City to me.

The road used to have several sharp curves that could make the hair stand up on your neck if you took them too fast. They are gone now, thanks to some fantastic improvements. It’s not as exciting to drive, but I’m not complaining.

Rural roads hold lots of possibilities...
even some early spring kite-flying.

The best part of the road is when you are driving to Brownsville and come to the top of the hill. You look down that huge river valley and you swear you can see to Maryland. I never get tired of that sight, no matter what season.

One of my first memories on the road happened in about 1960. We were going to a school concert at the Caledonia Auditorium. My sister Sharon was driving the 1954 blue Chevrolet, and she hit a fox halfway up the hill. We all got out of the car and examined the beautiful animal, which was dead. Glenn, ever the frugal big brother, threw it in the trunk because he knew he could get a bounty for it. We proceeded on, with Glenn behind the wheel, and Sharon a quivering 17-year-old mess in the back seat.

And all those bus rides with good old Dale Besse behind the wheel. He would take us home after sports practices too. Sometimes he would stop and let Bill Quillen off above his house, and Bill would happily get out—he was always happy—and hike down the hill through the dark woods to his Cork Hollow Road. I admired Bill’s courage then, and later, when he went off to Vietnam.

If roads could talk, County Road 3 would have some fine tales, as would the road to Freeburg. I bet your favorite road does too.