Pondering The Road Well-Traveled (Part III)

 What do I remember when I walk back through the years on the Road Well-Traveled?  I remember my early heroes who traveled that road with me.  Gene Autry and Roy Rogers walked the road of life back then.  My horse was not “Champion” or “Trigger,” but the porch bannister or the arm of the large porch rocking chair.  I rode along with Gene and Roy with my play pistols belted around my waist on many a wild adventure—righting wrong and doing right.  I wanted to wear a “white” hat like Gene and Roy—the white hat that never falls off.  All the bad guys wore black hats.  Whenever a struggle took place the bad guy’s hat fell off—but the good guy never lost his white hat. I wanted to wear a white hat that always stayed in place in every struggle that came my way.  

Other heroes were walking with me along the road back then.  There was Jim, the mailman, who always waved and paid attention to me.  Churchill, Willie, and Julie were on the road then..  Churchill was a family friend who never ignored me and always made me feel special.  Willie ran the garage nearby and Julie was his helper.  They patched many a bicycle tire for me and provided the “inner” tubes  for floating down the creek in the summer time. Sometimes Willie would take me fishing or help me build a go-cart or make fish hooks from his supply of copper wire. Looking back from where I am on the road now, I can see that they were just ordinary guys, but to me they will always be extraordinary. 

How significant was the porch bannister or the arm of the rocking chair and the white hat? Did that childhood imagining mold and shape me?  Of course it did!  Everything on the road well-traveled affects us, influences us, and guides us.  Jim, the mailman, Churchill, Willie and Julie were traveling companions on the road well-traveled.  How fortunate for me that we walked together for a time.  They left the road of life many years ago.  I miss them.

I have had to walk the road without them for many years now, but the road of life goes on  through the years, through the struggles, joys, the hopes and dreams.  The road is packed with other people, new companions, new heroes.   We never walk the road of life alone.  It is the road well-traveled.

“Before the Roman came to Rye or out of Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles around the shire,…

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread…”