Memoir Writers Homework/Transportation.

"The Old Trail,just moseys right along,
moves at the speed of a sweet love song..."

The rivers used to be roads,and the roads rivers.The Saint John must have been the number one highway in those days.Those days were ended before my days ever began,but I could still see the ghosts of that time when we took the old road that meandered by the river.A few logs being floated to mill,where once the river was full of logs,so that you could walk across on them from bank to bank.Old covered bridges and broken down,waterlogged river craft.

Mostly we went places by car,where we could watch little bits of the past drift by the windows as we sped on in the opposite direction.And the cars we had,most often two of them were grand things:a 1961 Valiant,an old Nash Rambler,a 1964 Chevelle,and the 1966 Chevy Impala SS which became my first car.Until they too drifted away,to rust in a hay field,where we could see them as we roared by.

The old road,the one that followed the river wasn't good enough.Because the province needed more power,they built a dam,and the old road gave way to one on higher ground.But you could still drive along the rivers banks and dream of the time past when it would carry men along at it's own speed,back when rivers were roads and roads were rivers.

Then,even the new road wasn't enough for us and it needed to be replaced with one on which you could by-pass nearly everything,cut hours of driving time,and arrive no more rested and far less edified.

There seem to be words that the road builders hate,and try to drive from our language.Words like "pastoral" and "meander.""Pastoral" as in a pastoral painting.Native children with a string of trout.Jersey cows grazing by a covered bridge,or an old woman gathering herbs.Back then,while driving,I could see my province in pastoral,impressionistic splendor."Meander"as in to travel the way the river does and enjoy it's green banks.But who needs that kind of road,because roads were not intended for the soul.So they cut a new one,straight as an arrow through the heart of the province.It will get you to all the same places,but by-passes everything,giving thought to nothing.It cannot recall the time when rivers were roads and roads were rivers,nor even when roads meandered by pastoral riverside.But I remember.

The Quote is from a song called "The Old Trail",by Don Williams.From back when country music still existed.