Still Learning

Abstract

Still Learning Brenda K. Johnson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution After the eighth chicken and dumpling bowl was stacked back in the cupboard and the rest of our extended family had departed for home or a nap, Mema and I took long walks on Sunday afternoons through endless pine and oak in the backcountry of southeastern North Carolina. Out of my Sunday dress and into overalls, we'd catch the dirt road from her backyard and follow the sandy wheel paths, she in one and I in the other. White parallel lines lay straight ahead but then disappeared [End Page 160] into the maze- dense woods. I never wanted this time to change. But lately on weekdays, you could hear logging trucks rumbling huge trees out to the highway. Click for larger view View full resolution We felt the logging trucks shake the ground as they passed. Good, I figured. With the road wider and underbrush cleared, I could find more blackberries and avoid poison oak. We explored new paths on each walk, but when it was time to go home, my grandmother always knew the way back. Whistling pines thick with hummingbird moths, tall sun- slant shadows, acrid resin oozing from slashes in felled trees, and the sweet anticipation of nature yet to be discovered lay around each turn. Of course, we avoided certain underbrush, else I'd have welts from poison oak. Being naïve and not yet schooled in the virtue of verbal restraint, I often posed questions as we ambled. "So how old was Buster in human years when he died?" "Do dogs go to Heaven?" "Will we see him in Heaven?" "If Buster made a mistake and did something wrong, would he still go to Heaven?" "We all make mistakes," she said. She paused to snip a tickle grass and twirled it against her cheek. Gray- streaked curls fell over her glasses. At the edge of the clearing, mature pine trunks lay strewn before us like giant matted pickup sticks. My arms didn't stretch high enough to climb onto one of the felled trees, but I picked my way among limbs and finally stood atop the sleeping dinosaur. "Why are they cut down?" "To clear this land and get wood." She motioned up to me. "They will make lumber for a house from this giant tree. Those with little trunks, matchsticks." We could see the bent grass and maneuvers the hauling trucks had made. [End Page 161] "But the trees are so jumbled," I insisted. No truck could get close to this pine tree with all the others so piled about. "This is the first time they did this," she said. "Maybe they'll learn." She was right. Later that summer, when it was my turn to stay with her for a week, I saw the road back into the woods had widened from use. We felt the logging trucks shake the ground as they passed. Good, I figured. With the road wider and underbrush cleared, I could find more blackberries and avoid poison oak. That night, as I settled before sleep and the cicadas stopped scratching, a high beam cast a square of light across the bedroom wall. Then another. Then there was a backfire. I tiptoed to my grandmother's room and tapped her on the shoulder. She startled. "Cars are going on our road back into the woods." "I know. Go to back to bed." I lay in the dark and counted cars. Five more. Morning came early, but my curiosity lingered. "Let's get beans picked before it's hot out." As cool garden sand sifted between my toes, I tried to make sense of it. Beans barely covered the bottom of my bucket. Wild blackberries were more fun. I didn't see the sheriff arrive. He just appeared, cleared his throat, and asked for my grandmother. Everyone knew that the law was wherever his shiny black and white Ford was parked. Today it was out front of my grandmother's house. As I ran to get her, a rusty sedan turned in and idled past the police car. The driver saw my grandmother talking to the...