The Place

In the last post, I wrote about my morning swim and my testing and calculating of critical swim speed. I mentioned that I did no more working out that day. I had two things on the agenda: help my brother load some stuff at the Ski Lodge, and close on a land deal to sell a big chunk of the Lodge.

Over the past year or so, I have written several times about significant changes in my life. This day, Friday, January the 17th, brought another one of those. Hodge Ski Lodge, as I have called it since I was a teenager, is 172 acres of Carroll County land that Dad bought in 1964. Let me repeat part of that: 1964. That means that land has been in the family and part of my life for a little over fifty-five years. 

I remember 1964. I was eight-years old. From that time, "the place" as Dad called it, or "the country" was a big part of what we did of who we were, are. Right away we began to camp out there on "the place." Dad built a brush arbor on a little flat overlooking a tiny pond and we-- the family and usually Paul Darby, Jr.-- would camp on Friday night. 

When squirrel season rolled around, we would camp Friday, walk over to Steen Hill Road in the early morning dark, and hunt until about 10:00 a.m. Then we would meet up, Paul, Dad, and me, and walk back to the campsite where Mom would cook us breakfast on a Coleman Stove. Great memories. Great ones. Sometimes we would fish in the little pond, and by the early afternoon, Jack Cristil's voice would fill the air coming out of a cheap transistor radio. Dad would throw fits as Mississippi State got crushed on the football field over and over and over. Then we would go back to Steen Hill for an afternoon hunt.

Later, a year maybe, we began the process of tearing down the three houses that occupied "the place." Yes, that land had three houses on it. Dad, Paul Jr, and I worked like slaves dismantling those houses, pulling the nails out of the wood, stacking the lumber, and cleaning the bricks. Yes, we saved the bricks. One of those houses was in not too bad of shape, and I remember us sleeping in it one night. All of this work was for the purpose of building the cabin which Dad contracted Joe Campbell to do. The cabin was a simple, three room structure that lacked a bathroom and running water. From then on, instead of overnighting in a sleeping bag under a brush arbor, we stayed in the cabin.

A pond for "the place" was next, a pond in the front-- even family members never seemed to realize that pond was/is IN FRONT of the cabin not behind it. We spent many a day swimming and fishing in it. I caught nice bass out of it, shot a duck or two off it, and swam and swam and swam in it.

I passed over the gardens. "The place" always had gardens. The first one was broken up by an old black man in overalls, Bud Anderson, who did the deed with a mule. The next year, Mr. Stone broke it up with a tractor. After that, Dad purchased a used Ford tractor, and I quickly became his chief driver at the ripe old age of ten. But those first gardens, although they were broken and hipped with a mule and/or tractor, everything else was done by hand. The rows were knocked off with a garden rake. The rows were then opened up with a hoe. After that the seed was placed by hand, then covered with a garden rake. Any watering was done by hand. Onions were planted by digging a hole with the fingers, pouring in some water, placing young onions into the ground, and packing them with the hands. I did that, and I could not even stand to eat onions. After the garden began to grow, it had to be hoed, and picked by hand. The peas had to be shelled by guess who? I know, the sisters shelled a little bit when they (or more specifically, Carol) were not throwing them away.

With the tractor, Dad slowly built up a supply of basic implements, but still a whole lot of stuff was done by hand. And the gardens got a little bigger each year until eventually we were feeding much of West Harding Street. Even the girls, or at least Helen, had to do hoe duty. We all picked and shelled and ate out of the garden much of the year. Long after I left home, Dad kept it up, kept planting, kept harvesting, kept "getting ready for winter." Looking back, I think he was reliving his childhood. That is the only thing to me that explains his obsession with the outdoor toilet. He had the toilet insured (I kid you not) and when it burned he and Mom rebuilt it!?!?!?!

The cabin had a fireplace and we had one on Harding Street also. Dad never bought a chain saw until I was in high school. That means that I spent my share of time on the end of a crosscut saw. Yes, I really did. As a little boy, we felled large trees and turned them into firewood with a crosscut, an ax, a sledge hammer, and a few wedges. We cut, loaded, hauled, and stacked firewood. We harvested heart pine stumps and cedars stumps from "the place" to be used as kindling. I learned, while still a boy, to make a nice fire while using no accelerants and only a single match. 

A big part of what "the place" for me was, however, was hunting. We hunted doves, quail, squirrel, and deer. When I became a teenager, raccoons were added to the list. I always had a place to hunt. And back then everyone was a lot more relaxed about property lines. I roamed all over that area and hunted wherever I wanted to. Life was one big adventure for me when I was not in school.

When I got older, much older, my hunting slowed and eventually stopped. What took its place was running and swimming. The Ski Lodge, "the place," became my headquarters for Saturday and later Friday long runs. I had a place to go, to park, to use the bathroom, to change clothes, to take a shower afterwards if I chose. That area has a maze of gravel roads that I know well, and one can run for miles and miles while enjoying the solitude of the country and the call of the crows. 

You might not believe this, but I never thought about how things would be after Mom and Dad passed. I just assumed "the place" would always be in the family. At first, the idea of selling the land was horrifying to me. When our parents died, however, we had to make decisions. Quinton and I, for a while, discussed buying the sisters out. Eventually, I figured it was not the best thing to do for my family.

Friday at 1:30 p.m., we-- Quinton, Carol, RT, and I-- met at a lawyer's office in downtown Carrollton to close on 93 acres of "the place." Before that, I met Quinton at the place to load and moved some implements to the south 40. RT came out and we experienced a comedy of errors as we moved equipment, mashed fingers, and stuck trucks. 

I did not cry that morning as I looked around knowing this lovely land would shortly be owned by someone else. We had to rush to Carrollton and barely made it there on time. I did not cry on the drive there. I did not cry in the lawyer's office although I had feared I would. I did not cry when I left and drove back to "the place" that was no longer ours to finish moving a few more things. I did not cry as I drove back to town. I did not cry in the bank when I deposited the biggest check I have ever seen. I walked out of the bank and into the parking lot and began to cry. Emotions. Those tricky devils. Just when you think you have them under control, they sneak up on you and whack you a good one right in the gut.

I drove around awhile and cried not knowing why, only that things had once more changed and they would never be the same again. "The place" was gone and would never be back. Life is funny like that. The older you get the less you like change. But that is when the big ones, the life altering ones, take place. 

Saturday morning Penny knew I was struggling. With tears in her eyes she told me that the land needed loving. "You and I," she said, "can't love it the way it needs loving. This guy [the new owner] has young children. They will love the land."

I hope so. I truly desire that they love the land and cherish "the place" and make a lifetime worth of good memories there.

I did. I have fifty-five years of memories from "the place," and right now I am feeling every one of them.