The Old Ford

This posting’s title might create the image of a favorite vehicle, but it’s much wetter than that. One of the charms of this piece of land—that induced me to buy it nearly 30 years ago—is its seclusion. It was deemed downright inaccessible back then, due to the fact that the “access” road forded the creek. To get in here, one had to negotiate that ford—simple at times, impossible at others.

During our first few years of camping out here we learned the definition of impossible, when the engine of the old van (no, not a Ford) sputtered and died a few times, in deep water, midstream. It caused a few scary situations in which I cranked the van out with a come-along—hoping that I could crank faster than the flood waters rose. So before getting serious about moving here, we had to put in a driveway. It eliminated the vagaries of attempting to ford.

Over those first several years living out here we watched, as other adventurous (or foolish) folks learned their definition of impossible. A few of them I pulled out—armed with a Jeep and a long chain. One memorable rescue came when the tax man walked down the drive years ago, wearing a sheepish grin. He had tried driving the official county car through a too-full creek and it’d died on him. We loaded the Jeep and headed for the sunken car. While sitting in the Jeep, waiting for him (wading out, dressed only in his undershorts) to attach the chain, I looked in the rear-view mirror and was horrified to see three ladies approaching on horseback. He moved real fast, escaping back to the Jeep. I like to speculate that we got a little break on our tax rate, the next few years. In any case, he became very friendly.

Then there were the three heavyweight dudes who pulled up to the top of the hill, after somehow successfully negotiating the deep ford in winter. The creek would ice over and some folks guessed (wrongly) that they might be able to slide across and not crash through. I had pulled a few of them out, too. These guys, however, miraculously made it on their own. They climbed out of their little Ford Pinto—which lifted a good three inches, when free of their bulk—while laughing raucously. They were very drunk. They maintained their inebriated uproar, as they pulled big chunks of ice from the grill and atop the hood of the Pinto. They waved at me, still shaking with laughter, climbed back in the car (which again settled down near its axles), and drove merrily off.

Not long ago the state built a bridge across the old ford. Increasing traffic now easily crosses. I kinda miss the fun.