Leaving Dutchtown

I really have no concise definition of what area is considered Dutchtown, but I’ve always identified as a Dutchtowner, and in today’s world, that’s all that matters, right? I’m sure previous generations felt more attached to the land. Their income, food, water, and in some cases, even their heat and shelter came from the land. That wasn’t true for my generation, but I still feel an attachment to it, particularly the area immediately around my old home. It’s funny how I almost always think of the area in terms of how it was when I was growing up.

Walk through it with me for a few minutes. I can look across the street from my front porch to my childhood home and see kids playing a game they invented called tennisball. It’s a variant of baseball, and the pitcher would hold the pitch if a car was coming, which was not much of a problem back then. You’d never get a game in today.

I can walk due east and imagine walking across a harvested wheat field where the only thing left is the wheat stalk stubble. The combines have harvested the wheat and spit out the straw. The baler baled the straw, and it was loaded on a flatbed truck and sold. Today, there are front yards and driveways.

As I approach my grandparent’s old place, I stop at the old apple tree, select a perfect one, and start eating it. I may even grab one or two more for later. Today, the tree is long gone, and there’s a Dollar General there.

I walk around the front of my grandparent’s house and go to the back. In my day, no one went through the front door. I would head into the kitchen and grab a biscuit. Slap on some peanut butter or jelly, and all was right with the world. The house is gone, and there’s a strip mall there now.

I can cross over Chamber’s road and into a small pecan orchard where there would be pecans in the fall. Then there was my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bo’s house. We had assembled there on many mornings getting ready to go out and put in a septic tank. Even today, the smell of fuel and sweet Georgia clay smells like money to me. There’s a CVS pharmacy there now.

From there, I can head north over to Papa’s cornfield, which is a gas station and a mini strip mall. Then I can go back across Chamber’s Road to where Aunt Maurine and Uncle Monroe lived. We spent many holidays there over the years. There’s a gas station there now, and something called a Jamba Juice, whatever that is.

From there, I can head over to Aunt Ethelyn and Uncle Ralph’s house. They always told us we could play in their yard as long as we stayed out of their garden, but we didn’t always hold up our end of the bargain, I’m afraid. The house is boarded up and empty now.

The next house is my childhood home. There are thousands of memories here, and almost every one of them is good. The more I’ve aged, the more I appreciate the childhood I had, and it was all tied up in this place and the people who lived around here. The last people who lived here were addicts who broke in and used it as a place to do drugs. I didn’t know anything about that until I talked to a Henry County police officer, who I saw parked over there many times. When a police officer was killed near a dentist’s office, I thought it could have been the same young man. I didn’t look into it, though. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

We could head further west through houses with more memories, but those houses are just gone now, and maybe it’s better to stop here. In these few words, I think you get a sense of the conflict between my love for this place and a desire to leave it. So, we are starting a new year in a new location. It will never replace Dutchtown, but things are a little slower here, slightly less frantic, a little more friendly, and a lot quieter. It reminds me of a place I used to know.

The truth is you can never leave home. You take it with you everywhere you go. – Maya Angelou