US 33

Just beyond the railroad tracks was a highway. At the time, it was US Route 33. Mom used to sit on the porch swing with me and drink sweet iced tea and watch the traffic go by. Sometimes she would wonder out loud if they were locals or travelers. We knew most of the locals’ cars and most locals beeped their horns as they passed. Those cars we didn’t recognize and didn’t beep must have been the travelers. Mom would look at me and say, “That highway right there will take you anywhere you want to go Suzie. If you ever leave here that’s the road you’ll take. But you’ll come back some day on that same road.

I knew that the road went lots of places. I could get to Mt. Alto or New Haven on that road. It’s also the road we came in on from Illinois when we moved here. And it was the road I would watch patiently at the end of the school year waiting for my dad to come and get me.
Turns out Mom was right about it being the highway I took when I left town. And, although it was no longer US33, it was the same stretch of road I came home on.