Two Dozen Eggs and a Long Walk

During the summers, I spent much of my childhood in the “country” at my grandparents’ home in Southern Illinois. 

Hard to understand how part of a state, known mostly for liberal politics and northern arrogance, could have a region that belongs more to Alabama and Tennessee than the Midwest. But that's the case with Marion and Williamson County in the far southern tip of the Land of Lincoln.

If you head south out of Marion on State 37, turn left on Grassy Road and follow the signs to the United States Penitentiary Marion, you’ll soon find the corner of Grassy Road and Grange Hall Road. At that very corner you will also find what once was the EL Duty Farm and the Duty Pond.

The area hasn’t changed much in half a century. My grandfather’s TV antenna, a remote-controlled directional positioning tower still stand but has now been converted to a flagpole thanks to cable and the internet. 

It once held a massive TV antenna that could be “aimed” at Chicago, Paducah or St. Louis and optimistically allow you to receive a strong VHF TV station signal and watch the Cardinals or Cubs baseball games. 

                

To the west lays 20 some acres of corn just as it did in my childhood. To the south a 2-acre man made pond once stocked with bass and brim. The concrete cinder block garage that once held my grandfather’s wooden Chris Craft speed boat, and a tractor still stands.

But the single wide skirted mobile home and a large patio with a massive aluminum awning has been replaced by a modest ranch style home. Gone are the rows of fruit trees, grape arbor and a quarter acre perfectly maintained vegetable garden. 

But the tall rows of “Dekalb 45” corn still look like the outfield wall at the field of dreams in Iowa.

As kids, the summer lasted forever, and we prayed each night that our parents would one day arrive to retrieve us from the god forsaken rural purgatory.  Something that I have now come to understand was really nirvana and life there was in a place called utopia. 

I little way down the Grange Hall Road was the Addison Farm. My grandmother would call Mrs. Addison on the party line phone.  “Beth, I’m sending the boys down”. 

She’d hang up the phone and hand us a wire basket and dollars’ worth of change. 

“Yuns” go to the Addison’s and bring me back 2 dozen eggs. You can keep any leftover change but if you break any eggs I’ll have to charge you for them.  After this stern warning to not break the eggs came a pointless, but she felt necessary caution, “walk on the same side of the road, walk single file, watch out for the mail truck and don’t break any of those eggs”.

The walk to Addison’s was at least 6 miles and uphill both ways or at least it seemed. I guess it was really about 600 yards give or take. But enough distance for two boys to get into all sorts of mischief.  Cicadas, grasshoppers and crows, sticker burs and rocks occupied the dusty gravel road soaking in the early morning summer’s warmth. We tossed rocks at crows, caught grasshoppers, poked, kicked, spit, and repeated four letter words that we heard our grandfather yell when he hit his thumb with a hammer.

It was amazing how two boys could turn a ten-minute walk into a daylong adventure along a gravel road in rural Illinois. Imagine Andy and Opie Taylor just talking and walking or Beavis and Butthead you decide.

In those days the eggs were maybe 50 cents a dozen. Mr. Addisson’s tractor in the distance meant the dogs were out scouting rabbits in the pasture. The gate on the picket fence swung open and we stormed the Addison property like we were Marines. 

Mrs. Addison appeared and carefully placed 2 dozen eggs in our wire basket. I held out my hand full of change and she took what she needed, which left us 2 quarters and a couple of dimes. 

Then she gave us an extra two eggs just in case.

The same admonishment was given “single file, walk facing the traffic watch out for the mail truck”. 

Truth is the mail truck wouldn’t come to at least 3 and we were the only traffic the dusty gravel road would see until then. 

The return walk was just as awesome and totally uneventful. 

The day lingered the morning gave way to midday with Paul Havey, where I’d hear the voice of the famed broadcaster over the radio, in the kitchen. About the time grandpa returned home Harvey’s voice would say "Hello, Americans (pause) I'm Paul Harvey (pause) Stand by for News!" and as if on cue the door would swing open, and grandpa would ask what’s for lunch? 

Soon all were settled down for garden raised tomato sandwiches leftovers from dinner and a dozen cookies. The afternoon heat and humidity was only interrupted by the sound of distant thunder about the time Paul Harvey signed off.

Now decades later I long for those walks on a dusty road to nowhere. The sound of distant thunder and cicadas in the tall grass of our nation’s rural countryside. A time where the only worry is the mail truck and what’s for lunch.

"Paul Harvey (pause) Good day!"