A Tunnel Through Time
It is like a tunnel through time, this canopy road that I drive under every day to get home.
I wonder if those live oaks, with their outstretched arms, can remember a time when mule-drawn cotton wagons traveled this road, long before exhaust fumes tainted the oak’s mossy hair and maybe clouded its memory with the soot of changing times.
Sometimes when I’m going through that tunnel after dark, my eyes will toy with me. The headlights will light up a dark corner, and for a second, I see the image of my old neighbor, Frank McGill, walking under the canopy.
He’s swinging his arms, exercising because the doctor said he has the “sugar.” He’s trying to outpace the diabetes. But it caught with him and left him face down on the floor.
Frank liked to walk during the cool of the night.
Sometimes, on new moon nights, he carried a D-Cell flashlight because the co-op had yet to string up any of its fake suns.
He never mentioned seeing a ghost out there in that tunnel. I know they were there. They always have been. Maybe Frank’s ghosts were shy — or maybe had a phobia about flashlights.
During daylight hours, Frank’s aunt, Mrs. Artie V. McGill, would walk under that same canopy. Their families walked this road for generations.
I can see her now as my mind replays it like an old VHS movie threatened by dust. On each side of her, under each brown wing, walked two small children, white children, our children. For many years, Mrs. Artie V. watched over them while Susan and I worked in town. Our kids learned early on from Mrs. Artie V. that angels come in all colors.
The children walked and wagged their tongues about anything that came to mind. All three, the kids and Mrs. Artie V., mostly moseyed because they were in no hurry to get nowhere. They took small steps as if time was on their side. Time is on nobody’s side.
Like “the sugar” that caught up with Frank, time catches up with us all. Mrs. Artie V. was no exception. We visited her in her hospital room. She was staring out the window at the canopy of trees when we got there.
We were glad we went. It would be the last time we would see her on this earth. She was glad to see us, too. “Yall look like new money,” she told us as she laughed and clapped her hands together.
It was under the shade of those same limbs where those two children learned to ride their bicycles. I learned something, too — that I could pant and run with my tongue out farther than I thought. In that time tunnel is where they sprouted their new wings and left their old daddy grounded.
Under those trees is also where they learned to drive my stick-shift truck. Only this time I sat next to them to do my panting.
Over the years, those live oaks no doubt watched us and laughed in their own way.
But the deer and squirrels didn’t think the ageless commotion was funny. They would scatter at the first spit, sputter, and sight of my oily 9-N tractor as I scurried underneath the canopy in a cloud of dust that smelled like raw gas and burnt motor oil.
During the rainy season, the tractor and I would head to the slick spots to pull people out of the ditches. We lost that duty after the asphalt came along. I liked the road better before the county paved it, back when it rattled your brain during dry season and rattled your nerves during wet times.
It’s hard to believe that was 30 years ago. As the cliche goes, time flies when you’re having fun. The frogs living around the pond near the canopy had their own version of that old saying: Time’s fun when you’re having flies. I guess the definition of fun depends on your perspective.
The wise old oak limbs that make up the roof of this time tunnel are now showing their age.
After a storm, bits and pieces of them will find their way to the asphalt, and my neighbors or I will come along and drag their remains to the ditch.
Thank goodness the stronger limbs continue to hang onto their ability to cast spells, or at least they will if you stare up at them long enough.
Even the electronics of this modern world cannot fracture the magic left in this quarter-mile time tunnel, even if the storms are crumbling its history.
Deer still dart out from behind trees, and squirrels dodge my truck daily. In the spring, I used to see families of young turkeys scrambling and disappearing in the woods. But I don’t see them as much since the foxes moved in. I think that is also what happened to the whippoorwills that used to call out after dark and remind me of my childhood.
Even if mankind, Mother Nature or Father Time one day take it all away, the vision of that canopy will always be.
To me, it’s a masterpiece on a canvas in my mind. As if good luck painted it on my neurons and hung it on the wall, alongside pictures of Frank and Mrs. Artie V.
