Country Roads

Visits to my farm usually takes me through my hometown and out west over the White Rock Creek Bridge. As the high school football season begins, the drive brings back a lot of memories. After I cross the White Rock Creek bridge, I see what once was the high school football field where I attended many football games. It looks nothing like it once did. The tall scoreboard is missing, the goal posts are no longer in place and the bleachers along with the speaker’s stand were removed years ago. The well tended grass that was mowed for the games and practices is now let alone to grow tall and be baled.

This is the football field where I and many others cheered on the Braves. This is where four of my uncles played football. This is where I cheered on my classmates,cousins and my boyfriend. This is the field where the high school band I was a member of would march and play rousing music during the half time. Near the football field was where the annual bonfire burned to start off the football season. This field was where homecoming ceremonies were held. Years later, when the two neighboring school districts were consolidated, it became the White Rock High School football field where my two sons played on the high school football team. I would be in the stands, or walking anxiously along the sidelines, cheering the team on. It was on this field I watched with my husband both of our sons crowned homecoming kings. So many thoughts and memories as my mind imagines how it once looked. For a short time this football field was used when another consolidation happened. It became the Rock Hills Junior High football field until the middle school-junior high school was moved to another town. Now the field that once came alive on Friday nights with cheers, band music, honking horns and loud announcers is silent.

So many school districts have been closed over the years, and small rural towns are missing the schools that helped keep the town alive with activities. School buildings now sit idol and empty. Some are turned into machine sheds, or used for a business. This county which once had many high schools, now it only has one. Thankfully it is doing well. Each of our county towns keep working at adding improvements, hosting activities and celebrations, drawing businesses and keeping the doors in the hometown businesses open by patronizing them.We have a lot of great qualities in our small town communities that have started drawing more young people back to their hometown area. It’s a good life. It’s just once in a while the days of our good ole high school years keep popping up in memories and making us long for those football field times once again.