SONG OF THE DAY: Riding Home (kudzu'd)

The road I live on turns gravel not long after going one east from my mailbox. I go that back way when I'm cutting down to Southside, and did so this past Saturday, to go visit the graves of kin. I made a big batch of cornbread, using old buttermilk that I'd saved for a long ass time for just this purpose, and went down and visited kinfolk and left them cornbread offerings. One cemetery in Amelia is full of all my hillbilly ancestors who moved there from Carroll County around the time of the depression, so in that little church cemetery lacking a church these days, there's a row with my paternal grandpa, his parents next to him, a great uncle that died at age 5, and then my great great grandparents (the folks of the great grandmother just to the left). There's another great uncle over in the other corner, but that little stretch is all ancestors, with a scrubby little bush swallowing up the marker of my great uncle who died in childhood. Then that paternal great grandfather's parents are in the town of Amelia, so my great great grandparents paternally, even though the man spells his name slightly differently than I do. I guess there were some twins of his who went by Fonzo and Lonzo who had a falling out, and one of them switched a vowel, creating a new branch. At least that's how my dad used to tell it, but he was a natural born shit talker, like me and most of my ancestors I'm aware of. Then I road back through Rice to the other family cemetery where my dad and uncle are buried, and my paternal grandma and step-grandpa Bob, who was as much a grandpa to me as anyone. Good loving dude, and my grandmother's trailer was always a sanctuary of love, though it could get stressed. There was always some sort of crew of uncles and cousins and other kids running through there. My one sister practically lived in that trailer for a good chunk of her childhood. I also visited a great uncle in that Rice cemetery, who always encouraged my schooling and gave me science magazines and talked me up about being an engineer. He'd probably laugh at me leaving cornbread for ancestors while he was alive, but I still left him a nice chunk, because he more than deserves it.
After all that ancestor homage paying, and asking for their guiding hands to continue to protect me in this off kilter ass world, I made my way back home, and cut through on that gravel road to get home. The leaves were all changed beautifully, and you kinda have to be careful in case someone is coming the other way, because there's not really room to pass. But nobody is ever often coming through there at the same time, so I do have a tendency to push it a little bit coming down the hill, because it feels good to slide through those trees on that gravel, with just a touch of chaotic slip beneath the tires, but nothing two hands on the wheel (plus one from the ancestors) can't keep between the ditches. That's an old feral prayer of my people, ever since we got mechanical wagons that run as fast a field of horses... "keep it between the ditches". And I did, and it was a beautiful day, and I got home, and straddled the ruts in the driveway to creep up to the parking spot by the house out of the way of the dead tree with hubcaps nailed to it as high as I can reach, and it felt more like home than usual.