When I was a kid I spent a lot of time at my grandparents farm. Actually, through out my entire childhood it was really my home. It was the one place that never changed. My father built a house, my mother moved a couple of times but that farm was always there. It was my little haven. Everything a child could ever want in this world was there. It had a really long gravel driveway that was probably close to a mile long. I loved it. That gravel drive saw so much. It had cattle guards at each end (these are grates in the ground so that cattle can’t cross them, therefore keeping them in) and when you first turned on it, it had a big long hill that you had to go  up, then around the corner and TAAAAAAAA DAAAAAAAAAA…………..Heaven. Huge wide open spaces of beautiful pastures and a big ole plantation style house. Of course everything is always bigger when you are little, right? In my young eyes, this place was huge. I always loved the driveway. I can still feel the vibrations of going over the cattle guards in my dads truck. Long nights of being at  rodeos with my dad, falling asleep in the truck, that vibration would wake me up and I would know we were home. I can feel the gravel under my feet as Anne and I would walk it countless hours, looking for birds to shoot at with our b.b. guns, going on “adventures” and riding our horses. I remember the day my Grandmother accidentally ran over a squirrel but it was still alive, so of course Anne and I had to save it. However, after putting it in a box out on the deck with airholes, that squirrel would prove to heal itself as my father walked up the back steps to find a box runnin around all over the deck. I can still hear him now “what in the hell is in the box on the porch?”  “Oh Daddy, that is a squirrel that Grandmother hit with her car, we are trying to revive it” “Uh, well I believe he has found his breath, he is wide awake, get him OUT of the box……but take him off the damn porch first!”  We were always in to something. I remember Anne and I packing little lunches and walking down the drive to a little spot out in the field to have a picnic. I also remember that  driveway led us to the pasture that we had to cross to get to our friend Melissa’s house. We became best friends walking up and down that driveway. I remember my fathers friend tearing an axle out on his horse trailer one night coming up that gravel drive. I remember the sound of trucks coming down that gravel road and knowing someone was coming for a visit. That meant great conversation and lots of laughs! That driveway always brought me amazing memories. They say as you get older you have to learn which paths to take in life. Which direction to go. I learned at a young age that that driveway, that path always led me in the right direction…….back to my heart. 🙂

Leigh Walkup