bugscufle
09-04-2007, 08:53 PM
Llano County Road 407 veers north off of Highway 71, while the highway is making its northwestern trip to Brady, Texas. It is a sandy, and sometimes rocky road. After a couple of miles, it starts to meander northeast between grazing black Angus cattle over to Willow Creek and the Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church. It is sad to see Willow Creek bone dry as you cross it.
The Shiloh Church there was built in 1902. I guess the members would have watered their horses nearby and let them munch on grass along the bank. I've seen clear, easy running water in the past. I imagine there were particular spots among the pecan trees, along the creek where old men and young children were baptized like their Lord. I imagine maybe the particular site was chosen because it was a lovely place for baptisms. Or course, if the location was chosen by somebody like me, they would have been looking for a cool and shady spot for after church Sunday dinners.
A good sixty yards south is a two-seater outhouse which is still in sturdy shape. Of course the doors open to the south for privacy. I didn't check inside to see if there was still part of an old Sears-Roebuck catalog stuck in the wall.
There is some old rusty iron pipe running from the creek up towards the church. I assume it ran to a modern (for the times) add-on restroom. You know, I never thought much about it, but when it is really, really cold, and all you have is an outhouse, it is better to be boy.
The creek must have dried up a time or two in the early days because the members built an old concrete baptistry just above the creek. It has all the frills, steps and a hand rail. It is about four and a half feet high. There is a pipe in that allowed the rectangle tub to be filled according to the height of the baptistee. Reckon anybody who got baptized outside in January must have really loved the Lord.
The old mesquites up by the church attest that the country was originally a mesquiteless, treeless prairie except along creeks. Mesquites would have never been allowed to prosper in more moderns times.
They still have Sunday morning services there, though only a dozen or so attend. They are all old. I imagine that each goes for the memories that are there. Probably to re-experience the times that gave their lives its substance, and to re-experience family and friends they can no longer hug.
Last year a storm blew over one of the mesquites. This year there were new limbs along the tree's sunny side. Guess the mesquites are kind of like the people, things come along that can knock them down, but it is a whole nother chore to knock them out.
After a quarter mile or so, the road heads back north. All brush country on the west. Some hay fields with water tanks rest on the east side, with a lonely knob just east of them. About a quarter mile from where 407 greets CR 413, it does a right turn due west. You work your way mostly down until you cross Willow Creek again, only farther upstream. You work your way back mostly up for about a mile until you come to Sherry Hill, a summit that is one of my favorite places in the world.
You can look back east and see the pale orange dirt road lined by dark green live oak trees go up and down until your mind can almost see where the world begins. It kind of seems like I am looking back on my life. I just see the high parts. There are parts that I don't care to see.
You can look north and see miles and miles of undulating oak savannah. You can look west and watch 407 ride the roller coaster down to where it becomes County Road 408. That part of CR 408 is paved, and from that distance, CR 408 looks like a silver ribbon wrapping the pastures. It is like looking at my future. The road ends a mile or so this side of Deer Mountain.
Another mile or so due west of Deer Mountain is Smoothingiron Mountain. It definitely looks like a smoothing iron. Everytime I look at that mountain I cannot but think of the harsh, electricless, applianceless, harsh life of women in times past. Their lives were so demanding and thankless, there was so much sorrow; yet even the remnants of their courage, their patience and their love, are probably the major source of what remaining character this country has.
West and south of Smoothingiron Mountain is Turkeyroost Mountain. This makes me think about Christmas and other special days in the lives of early settlers. I think about what presents they might have given, what music they might have listened to, and what thoughts and quotes they might have discussed.
To the southwest you can see Prairie Mountain. The was a school there. I wonder about their school life. I wonder what futures pioneer children dreamed of.
You can look south and see the Llano River Valley and the range of hills beyond. Today you could watch the sparse summer clouds play polka dot with the county, much the same way a mother plays peek-a-boo with a baby.
For the first time, I saw two different piles of beer cans there. I imagine it is local youths doing this. Young people could drink beer, smoke marijuana, sexually service each other while being able to see anyone coming for miles. I understand that alcohol, drugs and sex are highs, but so is beauty, and color and distances in time and space, and the contributions and sacrifices of all who have gone before. Sadly, at least for me, younger people are seeking the highs they are taught to seek and treating the fragile natural beauty of the gift that is this planet, as though it only was only for their personal consumption. This too, they have been taught.
The Shiloh Church there was built in 1902. I guess the members would have watered their horses nearby and let them munch on grass along the bank. I've seen clear, easy running water in the past. I imagine there were particular spots among the pecan trees, along the creek where old men and young children were baptized like their Lord. I imagine maybe the particular site was chosen because it was a lovely place for baptisms. Or course, if the location was chosen by somebody like me, they would have been looking for a cool and shady spot for after church Sunday dinners.
A good sixty yards south is a two-seater outhouse which is still in sturdy shape. Of course the doors open to the south for privacy. I didn't check inside to see if there was still part of an old Sears-Roebuck catalog stuck in the wall.
There is some old rusty iron pipe running from the creek up towards the church. I assume it ran to a modern (for the times) add-on restroom. You know, I never thought much about it, but when it is really, really cold, and all you have is an outhouse, it is better to be boy.
The creek must have dried up a time or two in the early days because the members built an old concrete baptistry just above the creek. It has all the frills, steps and a hand rail. It is about four and a half feet high. There is a pipe in that allowed the rectangle tub to be filled according to the height of the baptistee. Reckon anybody who got baptized outside in January must have really loved the Lord.
The old mesquites up by the church attest that the country was originally a mesquiteless, treeless prairie except along creeks. Mesquites would have never been allowed to prosper in more moderns times.
They still have Sunday morning services there, though only a dozen or so attend. They are all old. I imagine that each goes for the memories that are there. Probably to re-experience the times that gave their lives its substance, and to re-experience family and friends they can no longer hug.
Last year a storm blew over one of the mesquites. This year there were new limbs along the tree's sunny side. Guess the mesquites are kind of like the people, things come along that can knock them down, but it is a whole nother chore to knock them out.
After a quarter mile or so, the road heads back north. All brush country on the west. Some hay fields with water tanks rest on the east side, with a lonely knob just east of them. About a quarter mile from where 407 greets CR 413, it does a right turn due west. You work your way mostly down until you cross Willow Creek again, only farther upstream. You work your way back mostly up for about a mile until you come to Sherry Hill, a summit that is one of my favorite places in the world.
You can look back east and see the pale orange dirt road lined by dark green live oak trees go up and down until your mind can almost see where the world begins. It kind of seems like I am looking back on my life. I just see the high parts. There are parts that I don't care to see.
You can look north and see miles and miles of undulating oak savannah. You can look west and watch 407 ride the roller coaster down to where it becomes County Road 408. That part of CR 408 is paved, and from that distance, CR 408 looks like a silver ribbon wrapping the pastures. It is like looking at my future. The road ends a mile or so this side of Deer Mountain.
Another mile or so due west of Deer Mountain is Smoothingiron Mountain. It definitely looks like a smoothing iron. Everytime I look at that mountain I cannot but think of the harsh, electricless, applianceless, harsh life of women in times past. Their lives were so demanding and thankless, there was so much sorrow; yet even the remnants of their courage, their patience and their love, are probably the major source of what remaining character this country has.
West and south of Smoothingiron Mountain is Turkeyroost Mountain. This makes me think about Christmas and other special days in the lives of early settlers. I think about what presents they might have given, what music they might have listened to, and what thoughts and quotes they might have discussed.
To the southwest you can see Prairie Mountain. The was a school there. I wonder about their school life. I wonder what futures pioneer children dreamed of.
You can look south and see the Llano River Valley and the range of hills beyond. Today you could watch the sparse summer clouds play polka dot with the county, much the same way a mother plays peek-a-boo with a baby.
For the first time, I saw two different piles of beer cans there. I imagine it is local youths doing this. Young people could drink beer, smoke marijuana, sexually service each other while being able to see anyone coming for miles. I understand that alcohol, drugs and sex are highs, but so is beauty, and color and distances in time and space, and the contributions and sacrifices of all who have gone before. Sadly, at least for me, younger people are seeking the highs they are taught to seek and treating the fragile natural beauty of the gift that is this planet, as though it only was only for their personal consumption. This too, they have been taught.