The Dirt Road Museum
We’ll christen it Memory Lane
To see a dirt lane gracefully curving out of sight is to see poetry.
I pumped gas at a country store back when folks returned Coke bottles for a nickel. That was a bit after the time of Sputnik. Now Cokes are throwaway plastic ruins, paper maps are obsolete, and the old store’s roof has caved in. Worst of all, they paved the dirt road running by it, but nothing stops me from seeing that road’s billowing contrails and tasting dust when the wind came my way.
To see a dirt lane gracefully curving out of sight is to see poetry. Someday, though, the South will be down to its last dirt road. Just as gas pump globes left us, that road will surely vanish. Before it does, I hope a visionary will turn it into a museum of an era we’ll never see again. My guess is pseudo-Southerners—a mixed bag from every region you can think of—will shell out some hard plastic to see this scene from another era.
We’ll christen it Memory Lane. At its far end must be a crumbling farm. Collectors of old wood and longleaf pine have stripped some barns bare. Trees obscure the farmstead, and barbed wire sags from old cedar posts. Out pasture way an old truck’s gas tank, cut in half, gives whiteface cattle two water troughs. That blue farm pond with its green veneer of grass? In it swim bluegills, big mouth bass, and shellcrackers. That statue of a boy with a cane pole over his shoulder? Look closely. It’s not Opie Taylor. It’s just a country boy and that pail he’s holding is full of red wrigglers.
First along our last dirt road will be a country store whose architecture delights the eye. The store’s old gas pump gauges would delight the wallet and pocketbook. Nailed to the store’s front door is a metal ad. “Bengal Roach Spray. Guaranteed Extermination Overnight.” Stapled to a door is the availability of hunting licenses.
A wooden bench out front has smooth places that reflect light. That’s where overall-clad men sat for decades. The working man’s pocketknife, a Barlow, carved initials into the old bench. Around the gas pump’s base are old bottle tops pressed into the earth, no explanation necessary.