There is a several mile-long road that leads primarily to a cluster of schools on the edge of downtown Duncan (which isn't saying very much). This road is called "School Road" by everyone in the surrounding area. I don't even know the real name of this road. On School Road, about halfway down at the head of a very steep dip in the road, stands a house that is about to be moved.
In this house, not five years ago, there dwelt a very elderly couple who always planted a massive vegetable garden each Spring. On the edge of the garden they would have great looming sunflowers. The rows of veggies and fruits - cabbage, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, okra, cucumbers, cantaloups, watermelons, and the Mighties know what else - were perfectly lined up, well tilled, and virtually weedless. It was amazing what these two people could coax out of the Earth with their gentle and constant attention.
Year before last, there was no garden. Occasionally, I would see the old woman outside, but her frailty was undeniable and the land was too large for her to work alone. It was obvious that her mate had perished and left her behind.
Then, last year, a sign suddenly appeared in front of the house, announcing that it and the acres of land surrounding it was officially for sale. They were both gone now, and weeds had overgrown the front yard, the garden area, and the spirit of what once had been. I called the realtor to see how much they were asking for the land and house. They wanted $400,000.00. After I came to from my fainting episode, I forgot about trying to buy the place and salvage its pastoral atmosphere and, perhaps, the lingering memory of this remarkable old couple.
A couple of months ago, the sign came down. Now the house has been uprooted from its foundations and prepared to be removed from the land, and the garden spot is now nothing but a razed remnant of its former glory. Erosion has already taken hold in spots as the rain washes away the red mud that remains behind. Further below the garden spot, where the edge of a forest once stood, the land has been cleared and the beginnings of a road is now evident.
This saddens me beyond sufficient expression. I see the world turning away from itself in so many ways. When Spring would come, and the old couple would dance the Cycle in their own instinctive way, with their fruits, vegetables, and flowers, I always felt a stirring of connection with humanity and nature. There seemed to be hope for us after all. Now I see the same old destruction, in a place that seemed to be a bastion of the Old Ways, a reminder of who we should be and an admonition against what we've become. The more we progress, the further back into damnation we seem to move. If society as we know it failed today, how many of us would know how to grow our own food and truly live in harmony with our natural surroundings? I've had experience with growing veggies, but I'm nowhere near to achieving the miracles of which these old people were capable. How are we to survive when so many of the younger generations think that meat comes from grocery stores and have no inkling of the death involved in feeding them?
We are lost. As much as I hate to admit it, and I do hate it because I'm not really a huge fan of the elderly especially if they're driving 20 mph on the Interstate in their Sherman tanks, but our redemption lies in the older generations ~ their knowledge and wisdom of the Earth. So many of us today embrace the Old Ways on a spiritual level, but these Old Ways wouldn't be so old had they not been the epiphanies of our ancestors who were connected with the Earth. The older generations, despite their religious affiliation, hold a sacred and precious amount of information that will be invaluable to us when, not if but when, our society crumbles and we can no longer depend on electricity, gas, factory farms, and preservatives. All that will be left will be fire, plants, animals, and our own wits, our lessons learned, and our genetic memories.
Is it enough? I don't know.
With the passage of time, we become more distant from our true roots and more dependent on institutions that are, at best, temporary and, at worst, highly destructive. With the passage of time, more of our elderly pass into death without honour or even a thought for their having existed, and they're taking with them the keys to our future salvation.
I never knew that elderly couple, but I so admired them. Their dedication to their land and to each other was apparent to me, even as I sped by at 45 miles an hour. Often do I long for the simple and tiring world in which they lived. And, as their land becomes yet another tribute to our plastic, unhappy world, I can still see them in their straw hats working away at the land. Their spirit will dwell there forever, I think. At least in that I can find some comfort.
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