SW Rides II

We turn left and head up the winding Hickory Avenue gravel road. Dust kicks up behind us in thick clouds as the small rocks hit against the bottom of the car. We are traveling through an area that I have hunted and fished. The Smiths own much of it. They are all related to each other somehow.

Soon we are at the intersection of Skunk River Road (253rd Street). It’s a right turn down a dirt road to the river. We used to go that way when we went to Jackson’s cabin with I was a kid. I have always kind of liked it because the trees are grown up and form a canopy over the road. My Dad usually can’t resist a dirt road but this time we go on by and head towards the other Skunk River Road (265th Street).

Down the road a ways is a relatively new house. When they were doing work for a pond nearby they dug up a large unusual rock deep in the ground. The landowner was convinced it was a ceremonial rock of some sort that was left by the Indians. No one else seemed to think it was anything but a large, somewhat unusual rock.

He called Dad and asked him to come and take a look at it because he knew Dad knew a lot about the Indians and the artifacts they left behind. The fellow was so sure it was something significant and actually got angry when Dad suggested it was probably just a natural rock formation. He invited everyone he could think of hoping someone would agree with him regarding the origin of the rock to no avail. He even invited someone from the State Archeologist Office to take a look at it. He was reportedly furious that the archeologist would not agree with him.

I heard the guy moved the rock to the location of his new house and then built the house around it. I have never seen it but I assume it is still there. I remember some of my Dad’s friends joking about it several years later.

We go on. The intersection of Hickory Avenue and Skunk River Road (265th Street) is a four way stop. The house on the corner on our right is another Smith. I had one of his sons in school. He was a hard working likeable kid. If you go straight here you go over the hill and down into the river bottom. My friend, Steve, lived in a cabin down there for a while. I visited him once. He had a pet raccoon that lived in the closet and could go outside through a special door Steve had built.

Left would take us by Allen Shook’s place and then over to the old highway 218. We turn right and look at all the cattle on the hillside and we head toward the river. The hill is steep and the road swings to the left. My mother can’t pass this point without telling about the time they started up this hill when she was a child and that it was too steep for the old car and it started to creep backwards. Somehow they got it stopped and then backed up the hill that day.

The road leads to Faulkner Bridge but it is gone now and so we turn right down another steep but short hill. On the right is one of my favorite places. I wrote about it in another piece some time ago. On the left is a boat ramp and a small camping area. This is the place where I turned the six squirrels I caught in the live trap loose.

The river to the left is where a drunk yelled at Terry and I as we were canoeing by and threatened to shoot us with his pistol. He waved it around some by never fired it. We waited out in the middle of the river until the guy and his buddy got in their car and left. I never told my parents about that because I thought it would scare them.