EIGHT MILE ROAD
Not long ago I was driving in an unfamiliar area and without any sissy GPS to slow me down. I had my directions written down on a piece of paper and was finding my way just fine until I was no longer finding my way. I saw a man standing beside his tractor taking a break from working his cherry orchard and stopped to ask him directions. I was on Eight Mile Road and thought at least that much was clear. Not to be.
“Well, he said, you go down Eight Mile Road about thirteen miles (I knew it), and you come to the Old Colony Schoolhouse and turn north. The Schoolhouse isn’t there anymore. Go north about seven miles to Pole Line Road. Now the Pole Line is not there anymore but you’ll see a small pasture of Holstein heifers, and there you turn right, east, and go up past Cedar Ridge, and look for a new vineyard because there aren’t any Cedars up there anymore. This takes you right up along Paul’s Creek over to Roadhouse Road, but watch it along here because Paul’s Creek is dried up and gone and the Roadhouse burned down in the 1930’s. Right there you come to a stop sign and that should put you back on the highway by Tracy’s Barn.” I interrupted, “Tracy’s Barn isn’t there any more, is it?” “Well, no it ain’t. There’s a little Quarter Horse ranch there now.”
I felt like what Ezekiel saw, “As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl; and the four had the same form, their construction being something like a wheel within a wheel. When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved. Their rims were tall and awesome, for the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose.”
About three and one half hours later I had covered the twenty-five miles and was at my destination. Hey, things change, places change, no problem…and all without GPS.
(October 2011 Red Mountain Journal archives)
“What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” Jesus