Dirt roads

 As a young boy, I was fascinated with heavy machinery, such as tractors, bulldozers, excavators, and big trucks, to name a few of my favorites. On the side of our house, Mom told me I could play with my machines but not dig too many holes, as that's where She would be planting her tulip bulbs as soon as the first frost arrived.

I used the dozer for hours to clear my little patch of land, smoothing the dirt and piling it into a fair-sized hill. I wanted to make a culvert from one side of my road to the other because I knew if it rained, I'd be washed out and couldn't get to the other side.

I found a soda can in the trash and carefully cut off both ends to make the pipe my excavator would position in the river bank, diverting the water so the road wouldn't be destroyed. It was hard work, and when Mom called me in for lunch, I got out of my dirty coveralls and saw her smiling as she asked me how things were going on my land. I've had a few problems with my machinery, but I fixed them, and the work was right on schedule.

I dug and dug, hoping maybe I'd find gold, but when I hit a water line, I filled the hole with dirt from my hill and moved on to dig somewhere else. Sometimes, a neighborhood kid would stop by asking if they could play with me and my machines. Although I was hesitant at first, they usually got the hang of things, and my patch of land grew bigger and bigger until I had made roads and laid culverts as well as stockpiled small mountains of dirt.

It was nearing supper time, and Mom called me inside to get washed up. Dad would be home soon, and I couldn't wait to show him my project. The three of us went outside to see what had taken me all day, and both Mom and Dad's jaws dropped at the sight before them. I had built a replica of a project I saw on the television and somehow remembered it and recreated it right down to the soda can culverts and winding roads, all perfectly cleared and ready for the big trucks to haul it to the waiting piles of dirt.

Dad asked, " What are those holes?" I looked at my mom and told her they were the holes in which she could plant her tulip bulbs perfectly spaced apart. On the first day of frost, Mom, with her bulbs and me, with my dozer, carefully filled the holes and smoothed out the dirt. 

Springtime arrived, and the tulips came out in the colors of a rainbow, which made Mom smile and softly say they would not have been possible without me and my machines.

I played with my machines until one day when I expected them to be gone. I put them away in the garage in a box labeled Mike's machines, hoping that one day, my son would find them and start his own dirt roads using my old dozers and machinery that now looked so small to me.

Mike 2025