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WellRed
BY WEB EDITOR KARSEN PRICE
They Tore Down My Memories And Slapped Up A Roundabout
"The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too."
— Chief Luther Standing Bear
Well, it only took 30 years, but my childhood home is no longer in “the country.” We have officially gotten citified. And I don’t like it one bit.
As a child, I always told people we lived in the country, and it was basically true. Though only 10 minutes from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and about 15 minutes from Woodlawn Road, the home where I grew up was definitely not in the city. In fact, there were so many trees in the front yard when we moved there in 1979, it actually scared my 8-year-old self.
Our road wasn’t paved. My father used to plug the potholes with the stones I petulantly plucked from our yard — stones some landscaping genius (I use that term loosely) had decided to pour into odd places in lieu of actual gardening. If it rained, you could go mudding in your car, if you wanted to. Trees leaned over each side of the road and touched in the middle, allowing sunlight to dapple through.
As a kid, I would walk down the street to my grandmother’s, a saddle in the crook of one arm and a bridle over my shoulder, a plan for riding my sister’s horse always in my head. We used to ride the horse (her name was Fame and she had a bright white blaze) on the street, against what little oncoming traffic there was — without a helmet on.
That’s how country it was.
On the corner of the closest main (paved) street, known affectionately as 160, there was a restored house from the 1800s. A few clicks to the right stood Byrum’s General Store (still there, and also considered a historic landmark), which had fishing tackle, the most delicious hot dogs you’ve ever tasted, and the best assortment of candy within walking distance.
Back then, on Robbie Circle, the sky was bluer than Carolina blue, and the air always seemed to smell like cut grass. No one ever taught me, but, as if by osmosis, I became a student of Chief Luther Standing Bear’s very words. It is a lesson I follow this very day — that (wo)man’s heart away from nature does indeed become hard. Or least, very, very cranky.
The changes from country to city began last summer, when the bulldozers arrived in tight formation. It was an invasion, and one I didn’t see coming (which always makes things hurt more, it seems). In the period of one weekend, the historic old home was ripped from its foundation and moved on a short-bed truck down the street. I stood in various places, my camera in hand and a sick feeling in my stomach, and recorded the final destruction of the area of Charlotte known as Steele Creek. Houses were burned, land was spread bare. I watched as men climbed the towering oaks that stood sentry in front of the historic house for nearly 100 years, and, piece by piece, tore down those trees, leaving only the carnage of stumps and a sea of wild, red mud.
These days, when I drive to my parents’ house on Sundays, I brace myself a mile out, steeling myself not to be surprised at the next step of carnage, not to cry. It is only land, I tell myself, and there is more land. One day, my parents will have enough money to move away from this place and carve out a new corner of country for us all. Sometimes, this little speech helps me; other times, not so much. Bottom line, I have Irish in my blood, and we Irish just cannot help it: We love the land. Scarlett O’Hara told me so.
The other day, my childhood community reached its final degradation. As bad as the butchered landscape was after they razed every house and tree for two cubic miles, it is now worse. Instead of red mud, all I can see are the cinder-block walls of a CVS rising above me as I turn on Dixie River Road. To my right, in the pasture where I used to ride our horse, is now one of those newfangled roundabouts, which seem to be the construction world’s favorite new “must-have.”
Chief Luther Standing Bear, there are no words for the way this makes me feel.
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