Riding on the East Texas back roads

When I get restless, which is about every other week, I get in my car and drive with no particular destination in mind, just a drive and change of scenery. The other day, I found myself on the south side of my hometown on a street that goes through and follows the city limits.

My drive soon became a trip down memory lane, taking me back to a distant time when I was young and lived in the Highland Park addition, and Peterson Road was just an oil topped road leading into the piney woods. Small farms were hidden away along the road that cut through the countryside, but the main purpose of the road was so the oil companies could get to their oil wells.

Following the oil topped road back into the backland would take you past numerous lease roads leading deeper into the woods. Oil wells had been drilled here and pumped for fifty or sixty years. Today as I drove, the old roads turning off and crossing cattle guards were mostly deserted.

Back then I attended a country school built with oil money from the oil boom of the thirties and forties. I would board the bus at Peterson Road and follow the black oil pavement across the countryside, the road undulating as it made its way deeper into the woods.

Everyone, especially the young kids riding the school bus, took the oil coated roads for granted. We had no idea of their uniqueness. Not until I was a teenager and visiting my family in Oklahoma did I realize everyone didn’t have oil topped roads. In Oklahoma the roads were a rusty red clay which had been plowed and were somewhat level. Red dust coated everything. In the winter, the red clay absorbed the rain water and deep ruts were pressed into the goo. Often the roads were almost impassable. Cars were left parked and four-wheel pickups took over the commuting job.

Of course, our oil roads had their own problems. In the rain, they would become slick and everyone knew to slow their speed when traveling the wet roads. In the winter, ice coated the roads and all traffic halted. We always liked the fact that our country school would close at the least sign of ice.

As I drove along, following the old bus route, I thought of the thousands of gallons of oil that had been poured over the sandy land and plowed level. Today it is an environmental hazard and is against the law. Besides, the price of oil makes it too expensive to waste on the ground.

Some of my school mates lived along the road and I would go visit them. We often walked the mysterious trails back to where the actual oil wells were located. As I traveled along the road each day, I would see the many side roads leading back into the woods and wondered what lay at the end of the black ribbons. Now I know the lease roads broke off into other smaller paths winding to the wells and a battery of oil tanks which was built on the lease to hold the oil production.

It was sad to drive the road and see how it had deteriorated. The majority of the oil wells have been plugged and the tank batteries dismantled or left to rust away. I was amazed to see small pine trees growing where the oil topped lease roads had been. I could still see the lines of the road, but native Bermuda grass and goat weeds grew through cracks in the oil topping, a demonstration of the natural progression of nature. The land may be destroyed or trees harvested, but given time, Mother Nature will reclaim what is rightfully hers. Even the oil coating the land can’t stop the cycle.

By the time I reached my old school, my mind had been refreshed. A trip back into nature helped to mend me. The red brick school still stands, serving children from throughout the countryside as it did when I was a kid. If the old buildings ever become unnecessary and were to be abandoned, they too would return to the forest it had been before man intervened.

It was great to get out and on the back roads of East Texas and relive my early years. I know I can never go back, I’m not sure I would want to if I could, but to recall those days for a little while was enough for me. It rejuvenated my spirit. It made me smile.