I love gravel roads-narrow ones with lots
of dust and bends. They are not always the
best paths for travel as in the winter the
twists in the road often fill with snow,
making the roads unusable. But oh, in the
spring, summer and fall a gravel road is a
place to wander. Every day on such a road
dances a new dance. A gravel road is a
special place. A place to be without
company. There is a quiet happiness to be
found in periodic reflections. A time to
think and to be grateful. I was a regular
walker of gravel roads almost as soon as
I had learned to walk. Sometimes I would
walk at a slow and deliberate pace. At
other times I would run in most haste. A
gravel road was a place that was easy
for me to get along with. A comfortable
spot where my imagination had no
boundaries. A place where I could laugh
loudly over nothing. A location where I
could be unseen by anything other than
the hawk flying overhead and the deer
hiding in the tall grass.



True, the road could be hot and dusty in the
summer, but that made me appreciate the gentle
breezes it occasionally provided all the more.
I would sample the raspberries that fruited for
my pleasure. I would smell the delightful aromas
offered by the wet soil following a rain and
freshly mowed hay. My eyes were well fed by the
beauty of the wildflowers that grew among the
thin, young saplings bordering the road. The
young trees had fled to the open spaces offered
by the road ditch. Trees do not grow well in the
shadow of their parents. They grow tall away
from home. Often, a car would stop. I would
decline the kind offer of a ride. "Why walk
when you could ride?" I'd be asked. What I was
doing was so much more than walking.
I was enjoying life.



I still walk gravel roads. I still hear
nature's softest voice as the breeze blows
through the wind-catching hedge of small
trees and grasses. Why walk when I could
ride? We all leave our signature upon the
land. Mine will be footprints in the dusty
crown of a gravel road. I walk instead of
riding because walking a gravel road is
one joy I do not want to disappear from
my life.

Al Batt
Hartland, MN 56042
SnoEowl @ aol.com



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