The Dirt Road

[DZ]

The Dirt Road

As I turn left off the smooth pavement and onto the unnamed dirt road (it does have a name on the local maps but there is no road sign) I’m greeted by a buck peering at me from the other side of a stone wall. His disbelieving gaze watches my vehicle in apparent disgust for interrupting his 2:00 am pursuit of does on this November night. The road now badly rutted from recent Nor’easters needs a good grading which it will not get till next spring. As I drive up a steep incline the “washboard” effect does its best to loosen the fillings in my teeth. My tires grab an occasional small stone throwing it into my undercarriage. The tote of plugs rattles loudly in the back of the buggy – I swear the hook points dull from driving on these back roads. The road is very narrow – one lane – meet another vehicle coming from the opposite direction and someone has to back-up into a driveway or slight pullover to allow the other to get by. As I drive along I go by occasional driveways marked with family names like Ball, Tilden, Smith, almost all marked by “Private” or “Keep Out” signs. The road has many forks and most are unmarked – take the wrong one and you could be lost in a maze of other roads all looking the same – especially at night. A friend of mine got lost the first time he tried to find this place one foggy night – it took him an hour to find his way out.
Continuing on I take a left here, then two rights, then bear right at the apple tree, fifty yards further and the road starts to turn sandy – a sure sign I’m now getting close to my destination. I drop my headlights to just parking lights for the last forty yards. I pull into a small clearing just off the road to my right marked by a sign that says “Private beach parking – Permit required.” Room for three but I’m the only buggy here tonight. I turn the keys and shut the engine, then turn off my inside curtesy lights so as to keep my presence less noticeable even though most of the homeowners have long vacated their summer estates. I step outside into the black night; it’s eerily quiet with not a breath of wind. In the distance I hear a coyote wail; when it stops I hear the sound of receding waves pulling cobble stone into the bowl. A bowl I know intimately, the boulders surrounding it even better. Already geared up I grab my plug bag and eels and head down the foot path through soft sand over a small bluff. Once over the crest the cobble bowl that I could only hear moments before now comes into full night vision view. I pause momentarily and look into the star filled sky – say “Thank you” aloud – and continue to the water’s edge….


DZ