Ronda Rich

Syndicated Columnist

Not long ago, I drove home, the back way, from running errands in town.

It had been a few months since I had been down those roads. I was astounded.

New construction boomed with a subdivision being dug through the angry, unyielding red dirt. The ground, apparently, like me, wanted things to stay the same. Orange barrels signaled a new road that would tear down a house of the Lord and create a “roundabout.”

Sadness dribbled over my heart. I thought of what it was like when I was in high school with piney woods and large oaks that covered that land — until a big chain grocer built a store and tossed those beautiful trees to a lumber company.

Once, when Tink was away to shoot a television show, we were putting in a new deck on the back side of the property. I built our house so I learned about good lumber and wood that I should send back to the company.

A friend who was building the deck called one day. “I think you need to come over and look at this wood.”

Several boards were warped and the others were barely passable. I called the hometown guy who owns the lumber company. We went to school together. He and his daddy had the finest reputations in town for being good business people and selling only wood that they would use on their own homes.

“That’s just the kind of wood we’re getting these days. Most is coming out of Canada. I’ll try to come and look at it. See if we can do better.”

He never came. Or called. To me, that’s sadder than the wood we had to use.

From the archives of my memories, I thought of the trees lost to that grocery store and now to the subdivision.

When I got home, I couldn’t shake the sadness. A church gone, trees destroyed, and ground I had always taken for granted turned into commercial chaos.

Way back in my mind laid a song that I hadn’t thought of in a string of years.

Songwriter Joe South was born and raised in the outskirts of Atlanta. In the 1960s and 1970s, he had written a string of hits that summed up those tumultuous years. Songs like “Walk A Mile In My Shoes”, “Games People Play” (both recorded by Elvis), and a hit that took the number one spot on every song chart – “(I Never Promised You) A Rose Garden.”

From deep within my memory peeped out another Joe South song. It was a big hit. “Don’t It Make You Wanna Go Home Again?” It’s about a young man who left home to chase his dreams but found disappointment. He packed his bags and headed to the comfort of home but found a six-lane highway running by the creek where they went skinny-dipping as children, a movie theater in a meadow, and a drag strip where cows used to graze.

I, too, left the place of my raising to chase dreams. I was homesick from the moment I left the driveway. Nothing assuaged the longing. Not prayers nor tears nor Mama’s gentle words of encouragement. Three years later, I came home and nothing has tempted me to leave again.

Joe South had his troubles but he overcame them. We met briefly one night when he was being honored by Governor Zell Miller. Talking to someone as I walked, I bumped right into him backstage. I apologized, introduced myself, and told him how much I loved his work. He smiled sweetly, nodded his head of thick brown hair, and thanked me.

That afternoon, the songs, our meeting all came tumbling back. I sat down in a rocking chair on the back porch and pondered on all of it.

I played the song and found such truth in two lines.

“All God’s children get weary when they roam, Don’t it make it you wanna go home?”

Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of the Stella Bankwell Mystery series. Please visit www.rondarich. com to sign up for her free newsletter.