I was raised on a dirt road. I thought of it as a long driveway shared by everyone. It remains a dirt road to this day, 72 years later. How many years it existed before that I can’t say. The last time I rode up that road was in 1991. I don’t expect too ever go there again.

The house where I lived has been demolished and replaced with a more modern structure. There is a new house across the road from where that house once stood, but amazingly there has been few other changes. At least on Google maps it all looks the same.

For the early years, as far as I knew, that road didn’t have a name. Then, at some point, it became Hunting Lane or Hunting Road, I honestly don’t recall which. I just remember dad installing a mailbox at the end of that road. No longer did we need to ride into town to get our mail, it was delivered!

Even though I lived on a dirt road I don’t remember that as being rural. The road was tar and chip only a couple hundred yards from my front door. From there it was just three miles to town. I smile today thinking about how far I thought that was. At the same time, I smile remembering how I would walk, run (we didn’t call it jogging in those days) or ride my bicycle uptown and not give that a thought. Sometimes several times a day.

Yes, we had electricity on that dirt road. We did pump our own water, an electric pump. There were no streetlights, we just had to be home before dark. One thing that sticks in my mind is the sound of whip-or-wills. For reasons I can’t explain to this very day I was very afraid of them, like boogey man afraid.

I never saw one and as a kid never thought to look it up. I could have gone to the library, I’m sure they would have had a picture of one. My brothers would get me outside then rush in the house and lock the door, leaving me out there with the whip or wills! Today I would be told to seek therapy for that trauma. Dad told me, get over it.

I haven’t heard the sound of the whip or will in many years now. I have heard an occasional owl among various other night sounds. I remember listening to the “Katydids” without knowing exactly what they were either. Haven’t heard them in a long time, now that I think about it. Maybe I need to live on a dirt road.

I hear a lot of country songs about living on a dirt road, a real country stereotype. Wasn’t anything like that on my dirt road though. Well, we did have a split rail fence around the front yard, and it was dusty. We weren’t cowboys, we were something else. I never thought of us as poor folks or hillbillies. We were just folks that lived on a dirt road.

Well, the best part about all of that is being able to tell the stories today. I can say, I grew up on a dirt road, out in the country. Yep, a regular pioneer. Why we had to pump our own water and I did chop wood for our fireplace. The oil furnace was in the basement, the fireplace was for show. I don’t always tell that part.