Contrast Essay Roads

  As a child my grandmother lived on a dirt road in town called the Webb Ridge road. I always loved that road because it meant I was going to visit Nana. Looking back I remember the muddy ruts and the big bumps and even a few times my mom having to turn around for fear of getting stuck. Last summer, on a particularly warm day, while taking my daughter driving to practice for her licence, we drove down this road. Of course that warm feeling that I used to get as a child wasn't there anymore, knowing that my grandmother was not going to be there in her driveway with her arms open, waiting to give me a huge hug, but everything had changed. As a child this road was fond to me for several reasons, and none of them are present anymore.
  The first difference I noticed was that the road is not dirt anymore, there was a fresh layer of pavement covering all of the bumps and ruts that were so familiar to me. I remember that it amazed me that I hadn't noticed that the town had done this, and wondered really how long ago, because I travel past the end of this road for every visit to my mothers. I understand that with time there has to be change but, I just missed the old familiarity of the ruts and mud and was looking forward to instructing my daughter about where to slow down and which side of the road to stay on as she drove through.
  Elm trees also used to line both sides of this road for the entire second stretch.  I remember often asking my mom to go the long way home so we could drive through what I called the tunnel.  This particular "tunnel" was so beautiful in mid summer and especially early fall before all the leaves had fallen off the huge old elms. Dutch Elms disease struck our small town when I was approximately 25 but I never thought that it would get to those old majestic trees. They are all gone now, leaving just a view of the open fields and the old rock walls. The only thing left of them was the occasional stump poking out from the over grown grass.
  The children that were always riding their bicycles or jumping rope were all missing too. That was another reason I loved this road as a child. The neighborhood that I lived in, I was not allowed to play in the road. The traffic roared by so fast, there was always my mothers fear that I would get hit. Not on Nanas' road, all of the children would meet up and play together for hours.  Sure there was the occasional car or truck, but they were always going slow, trying to avoid the inevitable damage to their vehicle. There were no children playing that day on the road. I'm assuming because now that it is paved, the parents of the children have that same fear that my mother had.
  I was very disappointed with the trip down Webb Ridge Road that day with my daughter. I was so looking forward to telling her some of the memories I have as a child spending time on that road. Learning to jump rope, getting my bicycle stuck in the mud and losing my shoe, rolling my cousin down the big hill in a barrel.... But all I could talk about was what was missing, leaving out the part that what I was missing most was my Nana.