The Road To Union Springs

The Road To Union Springs, by Ann Copeland Fitzpatrick

My father's sister was an artist. She picked up painting later in life as my cousins were leaving the nest. When she started, my uncle would stretch the canvas for her and she would then begin to create an abstract piece bursting with vibrant colors and whimsy. We have several of her paintings and one of my favorites is titled "Road to Union Springs". It was a gift from my aunt to my maternal grandmother, Nana, as they were great friends - they introduced my parents. My aunt and uncle made the drive to Union Springs many a night, or Sunday afternoon, to be rewarded with a wonderful meal in the country. When my aunt gave the painting to my grandparents and told them the title and how she was inspired by the drive down 82, my grandmother's cook Eva solemnly said, "ummhmm, I know right where that fence is."

Growing up we made that drive a million times. I could drive it in my sleep and had been known to draw a fairly accurate map of it if a teacher lost my attention. The old country stores with a gas pump out front, slowly crumbling sharecropper shacks some of which still had inhabitants, rolling pastures with cows as far as you could see came in and out of view as you wound your way down this Alabama county road. My mother would intermittently nod to the left or right and let me know "that's the So and So's house, they still live there", or "that's the So and So's house, they lost it years ago and somebody made it into a hunting camp" ("hunting camp" said in disdain). Small communities, most unincorporated, marked the time left until Eva's biscuits; Mathews and the John Hall store, Thomas Sandwich Shoppe, Fitzpatrick and the Fitzpatrick Gro., Thompson Station, Mitchell Station both marked by train tracks, a silo and a feed and seed, the Union Springs airport- for crop dusting, and right before town, The Ballerina - a juke joint my mother allegedly went to one night in high school.  The pastures were cleared of weeds by strong herds. Woods, free from underbrush, banked sides of streams and creeks that ran under bridges that spanned the road. It was a beautiful drive, one you didn't mind seeing over and over again.

A few weeks ago I drove the road to Union Springs on my way to a friend's farm. It had been about a year or so since I had made that pilgrimage.  Seemed different. A lot different. The old country stores were closed, gas pumps gone. The shacks were gone too, or hanging on by a porch banister. Except for the Hall store and Fitzpatrick Gro., even the communities were fading away. Train tracks taken up, feed and seeds long since closed. The airport office is a deer processor. Not a lot of cows in those rolling pastures and the woods seemed to be choking in scrub brush, invasives my uncle calls them. The sight of The Ballerina is now a law office built to look like a turn of the century building. The town itself had lost its sheen. I had to catch my breath a little before I joined the gathering at the farm. I spent the day wondering is it really that different, that dilapidated, or is it just that I am seeing it for the first time as it really is? As we left the farm to make our way back down 82 the sun was just beginning to set.  Long shadows fell over parts of the road and were intermingled with bright patches of orange sunlight.  It was dark by the time we crossed the county line and the road to Union Springs was just as I remembered.