Bridges Part Three - "The Dangerous Bridge" Feat. "Rescue"
Happy Sunday, everyone! Stephen here. It has, quite regretfully, been a minute or so since I have posted anything on this blog. In my last post, I kind of semi-shared the seismic shift that my career has taken over the past few years. Although I remain loyal to and quite rooted in the field of academia, I found myself changing gears and heading towards a career as an academic librarian of some kind. Now, I want to assure you that this was not even a career choice that was ever on my radar; however, it is something that I sort of unassumingly fell into. After about four years, I was told that I would have to go back to school to obtain a second master’s degree to stay at my current job and subsequently become eligible for advancement in my career. So back to school, I went; I started the second master’s program in January of 2019. Going back to obtain the MLIS was quite the undertaking; raising a family, being a dad, and working full time is a tall order on its own, never mind adding in the additional stress of attending graduate school for 7 semesters straight in a row (Spring, Summer, Fall in 2019 / 2020, and Spring 2021) without a break. But I pushed myself, finished with my 4.0 intact, and graduated this May 2021. It was definitely a very ambitious undertaking and one that required a lot of faith, time, and money. For privacy reasons, I cannot even get into what we went all went through in my job situation, but 2019 and 20 were very tumultuous times for my work family. At the same time that I was competing in my second graduate school rodeo, I was adapting to and feeling the effects of some seismic changes at work. I did not even know if my efforts would pay off in the form of a promotion within my current workplace. There were no guarantees about anything. There was many a day when I would go home at night after work feeling so frustrated and down and angry at the world. I started to go back into a state of depression, and I began to take out my anger on everyone and everything in my path. I was angry at everyone at work and angry at the world in general. Looking back, I’m ashamed at how bad off I let myself get.
My friend Roddy and I go way
back – to our high school days even. In my next blog posting, I will formally
introduce him, as well as share some of his story and some of the history and
back story of our friendship. Our friendship has taken many twists and turns
over the years, and it has also had its fair share of ups and downs. Today,
Roddy holds the distinct honor of being one of my oldest friends that I keep in
touch with as well as one of my best friends. In this season of life, he and I
are sharing a camaraderie born of fatherhood; a sort of camaraderie that can
only be discovered by hanging out in the trenches of raising children that are
similar in ages. Our friendship has gone through many phases; together, we have
experienced the mountaintops and have forded the valleys…we have drifted apart
at times and grown closer at other times. Over the past few years, we have made
more of an intentional effort to cultivate our friendship, and I love the big
lug fiercely with a love that can only be shared by the closest of brothers.
Our wives and our children are very close to each other, and we just enjoy each
other’s company.
During a recent visit with his family to Mississippi, Roddy and I had the opportunity to hang out together for several days. Since I was taking some time off from work, he and I decided that we would have an “adventure day” of sorts. He mentioned that he had visited Natchez one time in his early childhood, but always had the desire to go back. So, I said okay, “Why don’t we plan a day trip to Natchez to eat some catfish and look at the river, but make several interesting stops along the way?” My wife and I visited the “Ruins of Windsor” many years ago during the early years of our marriage, but I have always wanted to return for another visit. I suggested that we first make that stop, and then visit another Mississippi landmark that I had never seen before: “the ghost town of Rodney, Mississippi.” Early that morning, we departed from my home in Clinton and set off down the Natchez Trace where we enjoyed a leisurely drive as we headed towards the ruins. We found the ruins easily enough using the navigation system in Elliott, my trusty sidekick of seven years. We enjoyed great conversation as the country music radio station quietly played on the satellite radio in the background, the music only occasionally interspersed with Elliott’s voice as he expertly guided us to the ruins.
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| Happy 7th Anniversary "Elliot" - The places we've been! |
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| Happy 7th Anniversary, "Elliot" You didn't look this good after Old Rodney Road got ya... |
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| With ole Roddy, shortly before heading down Old Rodney Road |
We didn’t stay at the ruins
all that long on that day, but we did enjoy looking around as we took a few
pictures. Years ago, when my beloved and I first visited the ruins, there was
only a small little chain around the ruins serving as a barricade. Now, in
2021, there is a large chain-link fence that encompasses the entire perimeter
of the ruins. I heard that it was installed due to idiots vying for the Darwin
Award of the year; apparently these idiots had been caught trying to climb the
ruins. Now, I am not the world’s smartest person, but I believe that even the
village idiot would recognize that these ruins are not stable. Nonetheless, the
ruins are still spectacular even surrounded by the ugly black chain-link fence.
As we left the ruins, I plugged in the address for the old town of Rodney, Mississippi
into Elliott’s navigation system. With George Strait ruminating in the
background and Elliott’s authoritative voice occasionally directing us, we left
the ruins and set off down the road towards the desolate destination of Rodney,
Mississippi.
I must
admit that after seven years of driving around in Elliott, I have discovered
that he quite often possesses a penchant for routing me to my destination via
the most roundabout route possible. In seven years, he has never failed to get
me to my destination but has often taken me along the scenic route. These days,
I am more inclined to use the Google maps app on my phone since Elliott’s map
is the same one he left the factory within 2014. Being the tightwad that I am,
I have never felt the need to spend the $200 + dollars that Hyundai demands in
order to update the map on his Sat-Nav system. For the most part, this is not a
problem unless you happen to be driving around in an area that has been
constructed since 2014. As we all know, the area surrounding Rodney,
Mississippi has been around since pre-Civil War days, so I felt that it was
sufficiently safe to let Elliott guide to Rodney, Mississippi. I must admit
that I had been absently driving, following directions as they were given, but
not really paying attention to where I was going. Roddy and I were having a
good conversation and listening to some Garth Brooks on the radio when suddenly
Alcorn State University appeared before us. In shock, I looked at Roddy and
said “Dude, this ain’t no ghost town! This is an HBCU!” I had never visited the
campus of Alcorn State University, and though being the academian that I am
made me very curious to tour the campus, I was far more interested in arriving
at my intended destination of Rodney, Mississippi.
As
I pulled up to the guardhouse, a very nice employee came out and peered at us
curiously. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” I said. “We’re trying to find the town of
Rodney Mississippi with the old Presbyterian Church and this crazy car has
done brought us to your university instead!” “No, honey,” she said, “this car
has brought you to the exact place you need to be.” “If you follow the
directions, your car is going to take you to the very back of our university
where you will find old Rodney Road which starts on the backside of our
campus.” “Oh, okay,” I said. “Thank you very much for your help.” “If I was you,
I’d be really careful, honey” she said. “I’m not sure that a little old thing
like that will make it down old Rodney Road!” she said, giving my car a dubious
glance. “Women!” I said, glancing at Roddy. “They sure do have a flair for the
dramatic sometimes!” Slowly, we navigated through the lovely campus of Alcorn
State University when Elliott suddenly said, “turn right and proceed straight.”
Suddenly, I put on the brakes and stared in utter shock.
The relative safety of the blacktop
suddenly ended as we left the university behind us. Before us, stretched a one-lane, dirt logging road that looked to have not seen any traffic since the heyday
of Rodney in the 1800s. “Oh, hell no, we’re not going down this road in
Elliott,” I told Roddy in a horrified voice while patting Elliot’s dashboard
reassuringly. We will never make it. In absolute frustration, I turned off Elliot’s
Sat-Nav system and got my phone out and pulled up Google maps. After surveying
the map, I determined that the only other alternative we had would be to leave
the University going back the way we had come and take another roundabout way
that would eventually get us to Rodney. Or, I could grit my teeth and say my
prayers while driving the 6 miles down old Rodney Road. I look at Roddy, and he
said “I think we will be fine, man.” “I’m sorry, buddy!” I mentally whispered
to Elliott as we set off down one of the worst roads I have been down in recent
years. Now, if I had been in old Henry, my 1988 F150, I would have gone all out
pretending that I was Uncle Jesse Duke in the Dukes of Hazard. But as it was,
we were stuck in Elliott with his approximately 2 inches of ground clearance
going down some of the roughest terrain he has ever been down. Slowly, I moved
back and forth all over the road, weaving in a manner that would have made the
drunkest of drivers proud. I wish so badly that I had thought to stop and take
a picture of that forsaken country, but as it was, my white-knuckled hands were
so busy gripping the steering wheel in a death grip that they did not have much
time to do anything else such as taking pictures. Suddenly, I came to an abrupt
stop; before me lay an obstacle that I simply could not circumnavigate no
matter how much I tried.
I don’t know how many of you
have ever had the absolute pleasure of navigating old Rodney Road, but if you
have by any chance been down that road, you will know that it is barely wide
enough for even a small sedan like Elliott. With its steep embankments on
either side, there is simply nowhere to turn around and nowhere to go except
forward or backward. All I could think about was Lord help us if we meet anyone
coming down this forsaken road. One of us would have surely had to drive in reverse all the way back to the place where we had started. We have had an
enormous amount of rain this summer. I, for one, have never seen my grass stay such
a beautiful shade of emerald green in the midst of July! Normally, my grass is
half-dead by this point because I simply do not water it as I should when there
is insufficient rain. This year, it is an absolute half an acre of lush emerald
carpet that must be cut every week. Apparently, old Rodney Road has seen the
same amount of rainfall! Before me was this enormous mud puddle/mudhole that spanned
the entire width of the road. No, there was certainly no circumnavigating that
one! I looked at my map and determined that we had gone approximately 3 miles
at that point; we had approximately three more miles to continue to Rodney. I
looked up at Roddy and said “I don’t know about this, man!” He looked back at
me and said “What are you going to do? Go backwards all the way to the
University? I decided at that point that it would be way too difficult to
navigate all the potholes in reverse; certainly, it had been hard enough work
navigating them going forward! With no choice, I hit the gas, closed my eyes,
and said my prayers.
I
had absolutely no idea how deep the mudhole was; indeed, deciding to proceed
forward was an act requiring equal parts of blind faith and stupidity. I felt
the car dip down and start to slide all over the road. Now, you should know
that Elliott came from the factory with low-profile 17 inch, extra wide, high-performance tires. They were never intended to tackle anything like old Rodney
Road threw at them. As I continued to press down on the gas pedal, I felt the
wheels spinning and the car sliding and I looked at Roddy and said “Oh, snap! I
don’t think AAA will ever find us out here, much less be able to tow us back!”
About the same time that I said that the tires once again caught traction on
the dry land on the other side of the mud hole and off we continued. We made it
to Rodney without any further incident, and I lifted a prayer of thanksgiving
once we had safely parked and exited Elliott. Our time in Rodney was rather
uneventful; we could not actually go up to the old Presbyterian Church to see
it as it is currently undergoing renovations and structural repairs. We did get
a lot of pictures and never saw another soul from the time that we left the
university until we arrived in Natchez except for one old man plowing a field
on a tractor right outside of Rodney.
As we prepared to leave
Rodney, I once again consulted my Google maps. I noticed that there was a
bridge up ahead on Muddy Bayou Road listed on the map as the “Wooden Bridge of
Death.” “Roddy!” I exclaimed. “We have to go see this bridge.”
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| Scary???? Or not???? |
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| We Survived! Didn't die. |
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| The "Wooden Bridge of Death"....say what????? After taking the obligatory
selfie to offer up as proof to our wives that we had indeed survived walking
across the Wooden Bridge of Death, we headed back to Elliott where we proceeded
to set off in Natchez under the expert direction of his Sat-Nav system. The month of May and part of June were spent in an absolute state of fog. For some reason, I started slipping into a sort of state of depression during the time immediately following my graduation in early May. For so long, I had fought, I had pushed, and I had been through so much at work, all while trying to be a husband, a father, a friend, a son, a brother, and a devoted follower of Christ. I am ashamed to say that much of 2019 and part of 2020 were spent living within the angst that comes from telling God “Hey, thanks, but I got this, I can do this by myself.” Feelings of doubt, anger, uncertainty, and sadness plagued my life for the first part of the time that I was in graduate school. In the middle of 2020, after everyone at my university, had returned to work in person, I recall hearing Lauren Daigle sing “Rescue” on the radio. I remember just breaking down and telling God that “I don’t got this after all. I need you, and I need you to guide me and deliver me through this rough season of life.” From that moment on, I felt like God was telling me “I have you, son. I got your back, and I will never leave you. Just wait on me and I will rescue you, and I will show you what the path that I have laid out for you looks like in due time.” From that moment on, I felt like God was just telling me to wait and be patient. In early 2021, I applied for a different job at a much larger university, but nothing ever came of it. My co-workers really did not want me to leave anyway. Again, I heard God clearly say “sit tight, be patient. I got your back.” In April, God made it clear to me that his plan for this season in my life is just to stay and grow where I have been planted. A brand-new professional position was created for and given to me upon my graduation. All the months that I doubted God, questioned him and was very impatient with him turned out to be all for naught. Whether or not we know it, whether or not we understand it, or whether we choose to accept it, his plan for our lives is unfolding in his own time as he intends for it to, and we are simply powerless to stop it. All we can do is sit back and go with the flow and watch all of the puzzle pieces begin to connect as God puts them into place. Stephen |
