By Ed Stozek
For the Herald

John Denver’s song, “Take Me Home Country Roads” always sparks memories of the many trips down the gravel roads that once led to my parent’s farm.

Today, a typical road-trip from my home at Dauphin to the farm in the Oakburn district includes a lunch at a scenic outdoor location plus visits to several one-room country school sites, farm yards, churches and cemeteries, as well as conversing with the locals whom we happen to stop and visit with.

The first stop usually occurs at the Horod School site. It serves as a reminder of the days when Grades 1 to 8 classes learned the three Rs in a one-room country school setting.

Sitting on the front steps and eating a sandwich reminds a person of the lunches that were consumed over a 12-year period of attending school. My mother packed lunches in my Davy Crockett metal lunch kit. The lunch kit had a scene of Davy fighting a grizzly and came complete with a matching thermos. The lunch kit was eventually replaced with a plain black lunch box and in my high school years a brown paper bag sufficed.

As one drives from Horod, every hill and curve in the gravel road makes one reminisce of past experiences.

One year my parents and I moved part of our herd of cows and calves almost nine miles by walking them from our farm to my grandparent’s place near Horod. Kicking stones and checking for gophers in the ditches occupied most of the walk. Once the journey was over we were rewarded with a drink of cold water from the spring well and a well-deserved lunch.

Several of the farmyards that we walked past that day are now vacant.

At one of our former neighbour’s yard, the house had recently succumbed to the elements and the yard is now overgrown with grass and weeds. When the family occupied the premises, the yard and the buildings were well looked after. My mother always admired the garden and the flowers. While my parents visited with Peter and Joan, I got the opportunity to socialize with their sons. I recall one visit when two of the older boys brought out their instruments and showed their talent by playing some tunes. It spurred my interest in learning to play the guitar.

In 1971, soon after writing my exams at university, my first summer job was “brushing” some of those ditches that the cows and calves followed.

Armed with axes and saws our crew cut down the brush so that the ditches were clear from obstructions, especially at blind spots located at uncontrolled intersections. When driving, one learned to look both ways and slow down and watch for oncoming traffic at those corners.

Initially, while attending Brandon University I often hitched a ride home for the weekend with one of my school friends. In 1973, I became the proud owner of a Toyota Corolla and coming home became much easier. That spring, when university classes ended, my fiancé and I dropped my classmate Frank off at his home near Rossburn. We borrowed Frank’s recording equipment and Janice and I had a great deal of fun in my parent’s livingroom recording songs on the four-track reel to reel tape recorder. One of the songs that we practiced that afternoon included “Take Me Home Country Roads.”
When my parents had their auction sale in 1975, the frequent trips to the farm came to an end. Almost 50 years later, driving down those familiar gravel roads for a visit to the “homeland’ brings back many memories.

Sadly, on the last trip this past summer, my sisters and I stopped in to visit an old friend and former farm neighbour. Her husband had recently passed away and we stopped in to say hello and give Olia our condolences. My sisters and Olia were former classmates at the St. John School one-room country school. It was great to talk about the “good old days’ and of all the changes in the neighbourhood that had occurred since my sisters and I moved away from my parent’s farm.

“Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong.”