Grandpa would often go with me down to Husband’s Place, or I would venture down by myself. After lunch one summer afternoon in 1970, my Grandma and I went down there together. We walked past our little orchard and past the several bee hives that lined the old country road. (I always hated those honeybees, for it always seemed that one of them would find their way to fly into my hair or ears.) As we made our way down to the cabin, we were carefree as can be, and I listened to the stories she told me about her past. She brought a pocket knife with her, and as I reflect back now I do believe we were going down there for one purpose only. That was to carve the initials of my family members on one of the beech trees. We picked one out right next to the cabin, and she went to work. Shortly afterward, it looked like this: 

H.L. (my father)

P.L.  (my mother)

K.L. (that was me)

S.L. (my middle sister)

K.L. (my youngest sister) 

1970

Every time after that, I would venture over to this tree, run my fingers over the names and make sure they were still there. Which of course they were.  Back in 1987, I happened to be working on a construction job down in that part of the county. One evening after work, I made a stop there. I walked across the dam and over to the tree to check out the carvings: still there! That was the last time I went down there.

In 1998, about a month before I was locked up on this sentence, I drove across the creek and up to the old place. The creek is nothing but a little ditch now, with the water barely trickling down it. I could remember back to a time when my Grandpa explained to me how in the old days they used to keep the trees cleared back from the banks of the creeks. That kept the creeks nice and wide, with plenty of water. But now the trees had grown large, pushing the banks in. Plus, the population had grown ten-fold in this area of the county, with sub-divisions everywhere, which of course put a strain on the underground water levels.