Yep, 'nother one already.
THE RED HILL
By Wilton Strickland
On the dirt road where we lived in 1941, '42 and '43 near Nashville, NC,
was a small, red clay hill. I think not only I, a boy of only 7 to 9 then,
but the entire family dreaded having to travel this part of the dirt road
from our house out to the paved road when it was wet. The hill seemed quite
steep to a little boy - it was especially "steep" and long after a little
rain or snow. Deep ruts of slippery, red clay made this part of the road
especially hard to navigate, even for the most skillful and experienced
driver.
My brother, Carson, about 16 to 17, was usually our driver. (Though
Daddy had cars and drove during the teens and '20's, I never saw him drive.
Carson or another brother was always our "family" driver while I was a
child.) Carson would try to give the little '37 Ford a good "running start"
before getting to the worst of the red mud and try to make it over the
crest, slipping and sliding (sometimes violently) from one side to the other
without going into the ditch. The trick was to have just the right momentum
to make it over the hill without having to apply so much power to cause the
rear wheels to spin excessively sending the car out of control.
Daddy always occupied the right, front seat and would sit way up on the
edge of his seat, leaning forward, and holding onto the lower, under-edge of
the instrument panel ("dashboard," it was called then) as if to "lighten"
the load and urge the car forward as we negotiated the red hill. I don't
know if it were a result of Carson's skillful driving, our good luck, Daddy's
expert pull on the dashboard or our strong thoughts on the matter that got
us over the red hill, but of the many times slipping and sliding from one
side to the other, I remember going into the ditch only once. Daddy or
Carson got a neighbor with a pair of mules to pull the car back onto the
road.
On a Sunday afternoon in 1995, I took Mama for a short ride along the
road that used to give us such trouble. The black Mercedes SDL glided
smoothly & quietly up the slight incline.
I said to Mama, "You feel that - 'you notice that - do you feel
anything?"
She replied, "No, I didn't feel anything."
By then, we had crested the slight incline, and I stopped, eased back
down the "hill" and tried it again. Again, we glided smoothly and quietly
up the hill. Again, I asked Mama if she noticed anything; again, her reply
was negative.
Finally, I said to her, "That's the point - we hardly notice anything,
now. Isn't it amazing the difference 50 or more years can make?"
Then I asked if she could remember that same hill on the family's '37
Ford during or after some rainy weather in 1942 or '43?
"Oh, my", she replied, "I certainly do!"
The "hill" under the Mercedes was almost nonexistent - hardly any hill
at all. The crest had been graded down and pulled into the valleys to each
side of it. We rolled easily, solidly and securely on asphalt pavement,
with hardly a sound nor quiver from the vehicle and the road, quite a change
from the same ride on the little Ford so many years before.
Whenever we forget to be thankful for improvements to our
transportation system and too many other things in our lives that we take
for granted, we should remember the "red hills" that have often impeded our
way but have now been transformed by somebody's ingenuity, hard work,
persistence and perseverance into "hardly any hill at all."
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