My Facetruck thread.

[special-K]

Originally Posted by slomotion

Thank you!

Fort Valley (the tug) of course was named for that area. My childhood was off the Fort Valley Rd in Carmel. Rt 769 (St David's Church Rd.) My sister and I would try to trap minnows in Passage Creek as kids. We had to create our own amusement during the summer days, as the nearest kids were a couple of miles away, but a bike ride was all it took. Our parents never worried about us - not because they didn't care, it was just a different time and place. There was a ramshackle general store at Dry Run and we'd ride our bikes down there for a Nehi soda. The two or three old men on the porch in coveralls would say "Hello" and go on with their conversation. These were the days when 769 was a gravel road and we'd see the dust in the air when the mail car was coming. Any time we'd see road dust we'd stop what we were doing and wait to see who was going by. There'd be dust on the Queen Ann's Lace between the road and a section of old rusty barbed wire strung between gray posts. The houses were a half mile apart, and it seemed we were all shirt-tail relation one way or another.
Today it's getting so built up it's hard to recognize.
Sadly, it's true, "You can't ever go home again". The images in your mind don't change, but the reality does, so "Home" is a just memory.

I wish I had know it back then. Garrett County, MD is going downhill from what seemed to a forever wonderland. I guess it was I-68 that made Deep Creek Lake become the place to build a second home, although it's been a resort area since the 30s. Now the cancer is spreading through the county, driving real estate prices up to about what they are down here... where there is a strong economy that justifies it. I guess it just wasn't quite far enough away.

Originally Posted by davischevy

You just described my childhood. Only the names and places were different. Three relative boys and I would leave home in the morning and come back at dusk, starving to death.

Thanks for the beautiful picture of Fort Valley. And thanks Other* for adding to it. It never failed, I'd get in trouble for coming in too late for supper in early spring with the days getting longer. That just allowed me and whoever I was with, if anyone, to get farther from home and deeper into what ever we had found to get into.

I had all my excess power steering boxes listed on Craigslist some time ago. I had ten I think, and was offering them individually. The guy who responded, I could tell, was an older guy. He had an early-60s Chevy truck he was putting power steering on. I told him I'd bring them all and he could take his pick. We met up in Berryville, VA which is about 1/2 way. It turned out he lived in and was born and raised in Fort Valley. It also turned out he would rebuild steering boxes to sell. I gave him all the boxes for the cost of one. I got far better than dollars out of that encounter. I wish I kept his name.

* Mind if I call you Other for short?