Aug. 12: "Escape to Alabama''

I’ve been spending the two weeks between the end of summer school and the beginning of fall classes at my friend’s house in Carrollton, Ala., which is about a pig squeal over the Alabama-Mississippi line.

Actually, Joy’s place is not in Carrollton at all, but about 12 miles outside of town. She has been living here on her family’s property for about a year now after leaving her job in Jackson to become an independent contractor. Joy lives in a cozy little cottage that once belonged to her aunt. The cottage is one of three houses on the family’s 160-acre plot of land that has been in her family for close to 100 years.

Of the 160 acres, about half of it has been cleared, mainly because her maternal grandparents once farmed the land. But it has been probably 50 years since the last crop was put in, so – aside from a 10-acre pasture that his home to a couple of fat and happy mares – most of the cleared land exists only to be bush-hogged. About the time you have finished bush-hogging everything, it’s time to start all over.

So the past two weeks have been productive. Joy, who is as comfortable on the seat of a tractor as she is on the floor of a nuclear power plant, took over the bush-hogging duties, which left me to do other things.

One day I took out an old fence line, using a shovel and a sledge-hammer to remove about 30 posts that has been sunk about half-way to China. It was hard, hot exhausting work, but when I had managed to get the last post out of the ground, I looked upon my work with great satisfaction. I’ve heard about 10 comments about how great it looks, mostly the sound of my own voice. But it was a job well done, even if the reaction of others has been a bit subdued.

We’ve been busy doing odd jobs every day. We’ve weeded her mom’s flower beds, repaired a broken weed-eater, sanded her front porch, which will be painted if it ever decides not to rain every day as it has for the past four or five days.

At about 5 in the afternoon each day, drenched in sweat and grime, we stagger up on the front porch and sip from long glasses that, because of condensation, are soon as wet on the outside as they are on the inside. We talk a little between long silences as we absently watch the little corner of her world.

The property is located along a dirt road of about eight miles that connects one narrow stretch of black-top road to another. Because it is neither a major road nor a shortcut to anywhere, the people who come down the road trailing a cloud of red Alabama dust are few and familiar. Joy’s little cottage sits about 30 yards back from the little road. From her porch, we can survey about a four-hundred yard section of the road, from her mom’s house, which sits high on a hill in one direction, to another hill distinguished by two giant oaks, where her grandparents’ house used to be.

Because the traffic is limited to those who live along this dirt road and Joy grew up here, she knows every vehicle that comes into view. She not only knows their names, but where they have been and where they are going.

“There’s (so-and-so),’’ she notes as a truck approaches at one end of the road. “He’s going to see his mama.’’

“There’s (whoever),’’ she says. “He’s just got off work. He works for the county and lives in the house next to where that old trailer used to be.’’

Things like that.

About 3 every afternoon, a little red car comes scooting down the road.

“That’s Mr. O,’’ Joy says. “He’s going to (so-and-so’s) house to have a beer. You watch. He’ll be back through here in about an hour. Then, in about another hour (so-and-so) will come down the road to Mr. O’s to have a beer at his place. They’ve been doing this every day for as long as I can remember.’’

Every car or truck that passes slows in front of Joy’s little house to wave. We wave back. My presence here is bound to be the hot topic up and down this dirt road, Joy says, laughing.

On weekend mornings, Hugh appears at one end of the road riding his big tractor and pulling his heavy-duty bush-hog. Hugh is a man in his mid-50s who never married and doesn’t smoke or drink. He seems to spend almost all of his weekends on that big tractor. Hugh bush-hogs the banks of the road and the steep hills, ditches and rough ground that the people who live along the road have neither the equipment nor the nerve to tackle. As far as anyone knows, he isn’t paid to do it. It’s just something he does.

But the traffic is pretty light. Most of the time, we just watch the birds that frequent either at the bird-feeder in her yard.

Because I am an early riser, I’ve spent the early-morning hours sitting on the porch drinking my coffee and reflecting on my life’s journey – where it has lead, where it might yet lead. At that hour, I have the company of a pair of cardinals, mates who come to have breakfast at the bird-feeder. They will swoop down to eat the bird-seed and they fly off across the road, disappearing into the kudzu canopy, only to repeat the circuit several times over the next hour or so. Nobody stays at home to eat anymore, I guess.

The other afternoon, Joy and I noticed a group of about six cardinals gathering at the bird-feeder, all females. I speculated that the girls had left the kids at home with their dads to have a Girls Night Out and, in the Southern tradition, decided to go to the buffet. I wondered what the topic of conversation would be among them as they flitted and chirped and chatted around the bird feeder. They don’t watch “The Bachelorette’’ or “American Idol,’’ I’m guessing, so I have no idea what they might have to talk about.

The birds are not the only animals who call the area home, of course. One day just after dark, I noted the vague shape of an armadillo waddling through the yard while Joy was in the house making supper.

Joy was irritated by this development. “Damn armadillo,’’ she said. “I woulda shot it if I had seen it.’’

Why? Well, for some reason this armadillo – despite hundreds of acres of perfectly suitable locations - has chosen to dig his holes next to Joy’s propane tank.

There are bigger animals that live along this dirt road, too.

The road is dotted with deer stands, and for good reason. The woods along the road are teeming with deer. I’ve only seen one buck so far and a small one at that. But it seems like every time you drive down the road, you spot a doe.

It seems to me that the main diversion of the doe that live here is to stand in the middle of the road and wait until a car approaches, and then jump back into the underbrush. It must be terribly boring to be a doe in this part of the world, I reckon.

I suppose to some people, life for the human animals our here in the country is sorta boring, too.

It suits me just fine, though. Somehow, it’s soothing to be out here, getting dirty and sweaty and then spending the afternoons and evenings on the front porch.

I haven’t watched more than 10 minutes of TV since I’ve been here and that’s a wonderful thing. Out here on the front porch, you watch the world and get to make up stories about what you see. It’s not that way when you are sitting in front of a TV: Somebody else gets to make up the stories and you just have to sit there and take it.

I like this way much better.

In a little more than a week, I have found that there are any number of stories that I am itching to tell, including the story of Skylar the Jealous Terrier, The Great Cat Migration and Homecoming Day at the Crossroads Baptist Church to name just a few.

But for now, I’m going to keep those stories percolating in my mind. Its 10 a.m. and time to get busy.