A Saturday Road
by
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The house nearest Maund’s store, flanked by a cotton gin and several warehouses, was the home of the landowner, himself, Mr. Oliver Maund. Daddy said Mr. Maund had five children but all of them were practically grown up and not one was as young as I. The next house, a wood frame house, at the bottom of the hill was occupied by a black family, the father of which was named Zack Fredman. Mr. Fredman, Daddy said had recently buried his youngest child which had been given an overdose of BQR. In a three room house on the corner nearest our oat patch home, lived the Flowers, parents of three girls and that most precious of all things to me, a baby. She was a little girl about six months old, and had blonde curls. Her name was Muriel. I fell in love with her and wanted Mama to hold her on her lap so that I might stand close and play with her. Her mother laughingly told me, "You can have her!" I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I made plans all the way home for my new baby sister. I wondered vaguely why we didn’t bring her home with us this time and I guessed Mrs. Flowers must be getting her clothes ready for us and we could go back for her any time. Mama and Daddy seemed to take the gift of our new baby very casually. They weren’t running or skipping our anything, the way I was. Old folks just didn’t get excited about anything. But here I was so excited I made up for all of us. When we got home and still no one mentioned making any plans to go back for Muriel, I asked Mama about it. "Hon," she said to me, "Mrs. Flowers was just teasing you and she didn’t really want to give away her little baby. Would I want to give you away?" I cried myself to sleep. This was when I first learned that grownups do not always mean what they say. All that summer Mama and I would walk together in the afternoons to places within walking distance which we wanted to explore. Little Bridge Creek was one such place. Not the same spot where we had washed clothes, but where the bridge crossed the creek about a half-mile below that place. Mama would often take her fishing pole and while we stood on the bridge she would try to catch us a fish for supper. For the first time in my life I heard birds singing other than the town sparrows to which I had always listened. These birds made a whole cacophony of sound, some of it musical, some of it raucous and some of it mournful. These last ones always sounded off about dusky dark and Mama said they were doves. I only knew their cries struck a chord of answering loneliness in me because I believed they were crying out for another place just as I still yearned for the old place and my precious Granny whom we had left behind. Often we would walk to Kenyon to spend the day with my Grandmammy and hear whatever news there was to hear about Mama’s brothers, my to uncles Phil and Truman, who were fighting in the war. We were not allowed to know where they were because of wartime security. Their mail was censored, but Grandmammy got letters of a sort, little card-like things with microscopic writing. These letters simply told that they were well, asked how she and my Granddaddy were, and closed with love.
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About the Book
Even now I can recognize a Saturday Road. I might be driving alone down the too familiar street on which I live or on a highway hundreds of miles away from home, never thinking of a Saturday Road. Without expecting it, I will be surprised to find one staring at me through the windshield, I’ll notice the singing of the tires on the asphalt and the endless gray ahead of me will unexpectedly become silver ribbon, sparkling, shimmering, and beckoning to me in the sunlight. Houses and flowers by the side of the road will seem to come alive with color sharp and clear. I’ll come over the crest of a hill and I can see forever the world spread out before. I’ll get that familiar fluttery feeling inside. Perhaps I’ll press the accelerator harder for just a moment. Then I’ll slow it down again. I want this to last. I’ll be aware of every nickel and dime in my pocket. I’ll start to hum a happy little tune around the works. "Saturday Road, going to town." I envision variety store counters with interesting things on them. That’s my Saturday Road: the road to Oz, Shangri-La, and the end of the rainbow. This magic road was the most intricate and exciting fantasy I ever devised as a child. It meant going to town where the change in my pockets would buy me an assortment of hair bows, little tea sets, or tiny celluloid dolls and ceramic what-knots to add to my collection. Or, it could mean that I was on my way by bus or train back to the foothills or northeast Alabama for a visit to the beloved place where I was born. Most of all, the Saturday Road was my escape from the economic poverty in which we lived during the early nineteen forties on the heels of what my parents called, The Great Depression. The Saturday Road was a state of mind, I looked for it everywhere I went and I invariably found it.
About the Author
I am a homemaker, day care director, writer, and Red Cross volunteer, secretary for the Dale County Human Resources Board, President of Midland City Historical Society. I teach Sunday school and sing in the church choir. I live in Midland City, Alabama with my husband Clarence. We have four children, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. My hobbies are gardening painting, genealogy, history and listening to music. I’ve been writing since eighth grade. I was a correspondent for The Southern Star a weekly newspaper from Ozark, Alabama.