The roads and highways rolling over the gentle hills of Washington Parish might pale next to Highway 80 in Wyoming —the highway to heaven. Still, the roads and a particular highway horizon are no less moving for me.
Most of these roads were still dirt in my lifetime. I have memories of gravel pelting my calves as my cousins and I dangled our legs over the open gate of my grandfather’s Rambler on the way to the creek.
Before man dug gravel from pits to make roads for Ramblers, Ford trucks, and family sedans, these roads were just paths and wood, home to the Choctaw.
A Highway Horizon
There are crests on these roads where you can see for miles into a distant horizon. One crest, just around the bend from a hunting club camp, remains a favorite of mine. When my car reaches the highpoint, if the trees have been harvested or the saplings are yet young, I can see deep into the highway horizon. Maybe all the way to Mississippi.
The feeling that flushes through me as I gaze across the pine canopy is ancient and predates my eyes. Perhaps it’s the drop of Choctaw blood in me or maybe simply the thrill of swinging round a bend.
The first time I noticed the view, I experienced one of those “you’re connected” moments. The peace of ancestors and the serenity of time coursed through my cells.
I began to anticipate that bend and crest, looking forward to the peace and serenity that might come.
I’m not sensitive to vortexes and energies, but maybe that crest is mine. Maybe I’m connected to ancient eyes that watched those hills, the deepness of their sorrow, the lightness of their joy. I feel those things on that hill when I see the blues in the distance.
The Choctaw are mostly gone, but the energy of their love for these hills still vibrates. I’m grateful for that bit of highway that connects me to their love.
©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2024
Beautiful photo and description. The rolling hills where I grew up in Missouri are different from these, but they mean a lot to me, even when I go many months without seeing them from my current home in the suburbs.
To the best of my knowledge I have no Indigenous ancestry. Yet, from the first time we rounded a particular curve on NY17 near Hancock almost 40 years ago, I felt that I had lived there at one time as a Native boy. Strange? Your post gives me some of the same feeling. Alana ramblinwitham
I get goosebumps when I think of the native Americans living off the land hundreds of years ago. Somehow it is in your blood. That’s why you find it so stirring.