Road Trip!

I went on a road trip this summer. Probably not the type you would expect, not what the mind may conjure up at the mention of the phrase. But, it was great, really great, a pilgrimage. My traveling companions were my 86 year old father and my 19 year old son. Our mission was all about my dad and his desire to "go home" to the mountains where he was raised, where all his childhood memories took place, memories that were stirring in him. I have always adored and respected my father. He is a man of fine character, he is compassionate and generous and humble. He remembers all the names and details of his childhood and young adulthood, which makes for some wonderful tales. This was a trip down memory lane, well...country roads.

My dad was born in 1921, in Borderland Camp in Kentucky. Borderland was a coal mining camp where families lived and worked. They bought their groceries at the company store and usually didn't have anything left over. My dad comes from a family of 12. Seven of his siblings,the remainder of his family are spread throughout the south. Several of them still live in Kentucky, not too far from home.

One of the objectives of this trip was to locate the land where my father's paternal grandparents had lived. It was the farm where he spent summers , where he would travel to throughout his childhood to pick apples from the orchard and carry sacks of them home on the running boards of his dad's truck.

His instruction to me, the driver, was to take it slow as we drove through Louisa KY and over the bridge into Fort Gay, WV where his dad was born. We were looking for "a road going almost straight up the side of the mountain". That's it? The extent of my directive? Just when I am thinking were are going to be disappointed, my dad says, "stop here and let me run into this little store and ask someone". Okay, my dad is 86, so this farm was around some 80-100 years ago...I am thinking that no one is going to remember this place, but here he comes with a smile on his face, "we just passed it, it's around that bend". We found the land where the farm and my fathers fond memories were. We drove "straight up the side of the mountain" up a winding one-lane road, past neat little homes and mobile homes and a few shacks that my father remembered. We got to the top and a lot had changed. My father was not so sure...it looked so different. So here we are at a fork in the lane, my dad steps out of and says he is going to go knock on a door and see if he can talk to someone. This is a little alarming to me, we are up a holler, don't know anyone and he wants to knock on doors. Some of these people live here because they don't want people knocking on their door. I looked around and said, "go to that door daddy, it has flowers and a welcome sign". So that was the direction he headed. A man appeared on the driveway and made his way down to my father. I was waiting with my son when my dad motioned for me to join him. I get chills as I am writing this...we were in the right place, this man knew my father's family and many of the people from my father's memories. My grandfather had sold his father the land decades earlier. We had gone to the right door. My father got his wish to reminisce, to remember. On top of that mountain we found the little family cemetery where my great grandparents were buried. Some of the men who still live up there stopped their work to "visit" with my dad, talk about the old days...about where certain people in their lives had ended up, who had died, who was still around.

For anyone who may think this was coincidince, well... I don't believe in coincidince. This was a gift for someone special, a God thing...and this was only one of many on this road trip. A trip that we three will always cherish.
I have so many fond memories of this trip, I am hoping to share them through some new art that is still in my head. I don't know if it could capture the impact this trip has had on me, but here's hoping.
Renee