They say, "You can't go home."

Yesterday as I was travelling toward Goshen, VT for an Endurance Society event, I made a decision to detour to the house I grew up in. It is 3.5 miles off of the main road, and about 2.5 of those are dirt. During the 12 years that I lived on Gilead Road, not much changed, which is one of the reasons we all lived up there, I guess.
Life was simple(r) back then, in the mid 70's-mid 80's. At least it was for me; I turned 17 in 1986. Not saying it was easier, just simpler.

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As I drove along Gilead, there were clear signs of change mixed in with subtle signs that somethings never change. New houses, new side roads, slightly wider swaths along the brook (thank you, Irene). The paved part was just as choppy as always; I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't been resurfaced in the past 30+ years. Once I hit the dirt part it was tough to fight the urge to drive like a rally car racer, especially since it was in the process of being graded for the summer. Several places had been washed away earlier this spring, as evidenced by some mis-matching gravel in some places and still-existing missing parts of the road in others.
Not far along, after I'd passed the grader, I came across the first sight that tugged at my heart-strings. The bridge to a longtime family friend's house had been partially washed out. The irony here is that the homeowner, Thomas, designed and constructed one of the longest bridge spans along Interstate 91 in Vermont. This was back in the days of rolled up blue prints, slide rulers, and steam shovels. Yet here it was, a short concrete span across the Gilead Brook, impassible. 
At last, I made my way to our old house. Originally built by a barrel maker as a camp, it housed our family for over a decade. We had made some changes to the inside (added dormer to second floor and created 2 bedrooms) as well as the outside (eliminated an odd roof pitch). In the summer of my freshman year my dad and I built a 24' x 24' garage/barn/shed. That same summer we hosted an exchange student from Japan who has become a lifelong friend; we still chat online every now and again. Takahiro helped during construction, and signed the big support beam. To this day I wonder if his artwork is still visible.
I parked just beyond the house at the top of a new-to-me access road, loaded up the camera, and headed down memory lane.

At the bottom of the hill there runs a small brook. Most summers it would dry up in spots, giving me pause to wonder what would happen to the fish that weren't in the deeper pool. The stream would rage in the spring with runoff from the hills on either side and we could hear it from within our house even though we couldn't see it through the trees. There exists a stone bridge to cross the stream and head up the next hill. When I was a young teen a storm had come through and dislodged some of the larger pieces, so my Dad and I had a go at repairing it as best we could. From that summer came the running joke, "they're heavy because they're filled with water!" My heart swelled when I saw that the bridge was still there, structurally sound. Some logging had been done recently, and it was clear that the bridge had been used by some machinery much heavier than the old tractor that we used to haul wood to heat the house. One or two stones had fallen back into the brook on the downstream side, but most likely because they were so heavy and water logged. 

 The rest of my time in the woods revealed a network of logging roads in various stages of natural reclamation, a clear cut area with great a southern view and a lean-to, and enough new-growth beech trees to feed a small army of bears. I got to doing the math and figured that it has been around 33 years since I'd wandered those hills. Several times I stood simply and marveled at life.
Having fed enough black flies and mosquitoes for one day, I headed back to the car, leaving behind the woods where I often ran, chased by unseen villains. The woods where I toiled long hours with my father to bring in firewood. The woods where I would go to simply get away from my parents, from life, and to clear my head. 
Along the way I snapped a few more pictures. Perhaps my favorite is the one of the white pine tree. Looking closely, you can spot two boards up there. They are the remains of a 'tree fort' that I built nearly 40 years ago! One summer I went on a tree fort building spree and had several of them around that field. Like I said, life was more simple back then.
Thank you for stopping by. A full album of the pictures I took on this adventure can be found by clicking here.