Asking country directions to a destination can bring on confusion for a lot of city folks. City streets are marked with signs, distances to the next place, and similar guidance to find a sought after place. On country roads around Myrick's Mill, there were no signs to provide direction. A country store seems to attract people looking for someone or someplace. Once an inquirer was given directions, he had to figure out what they meant.

The city listener's ear would have difficulty, but a country ear would hear and understand the message quite clearly. You see, the brain that processes the city ears message had to be conditioned to the lingo. Could you find Mrs. Digger's house if someone told you it was "away up the road on the old Simmons place just past big oak curve on the east side of the road, about 5 chains back in the oak grove"?

You see, a neighbor might live up the road or down the road. On the other hand they might live just up or just down the road. Being up or down could mean a mile or it could mean 5 miles. Let me explain. First, this up or down business is quite simple. If the road generally travels up more hills than down to a neighbor's house, then the neighbor is said to live up the road. Logically, if the road travels down hill more often than up, then the neighbor was said to live down the road. Yeah, I know it's simple, but city folk don't always understand country directions; now, for the more complicated.

If no one lives between your house and your neighbor's house, then the neighbor simply lives up the road or down the road, on the left, right, east, west, etc regardless of the miles. There is a limit to the miles; but, there seems to be no rule as to when it occurs. It's a feel that has to be developed rather than processed with conventional logic.

If there are several other neighbors along the way, then there's a different expression. The closet neighbor is said to live just up the road, which usually meant the first or second house. If the neighbor lived past several other neighbors, then the neighbor is said to live away up the road. Again, the miles didn't matter….it was still away up the road. Conventional reasoning suggests that it was a long distance; but, on this finer point of country lingo, conventional reasoning would get you completely lost and confused.

To further pinpoint the location various references might be used, such as "they live away up the road on the old Simmons place. I've never understood why a farm, or other parcel of land was always referred to as the "old --------place", but tradition suggest that it was important to use this expression. Even deeds recorded in the courthouse referred to adjoining lands as being the "old -------- place". Being written in a deed and recorded in the courthouse gives such descriptions an almost sacred status. So, no one has ever questioned it, and no country lawyer would ever stray from tradition known to the locals. In legal terms, I'm told it means abiding by precedent. Lawyers are big on abiding by precedent.

If an inquirer happened to be a foreigner, which could have meant a resident from another state, or maybe the adjoining county, then the directions to the neighbors' house might be described more fully as "away up the road on the east side on the old Simmons place just past big oak curve, about 5 chains back from the road in an oak grove". That was really explicit. Now anyone could find a neighbors house by that description. To ask for further instruction was to reveal real ignorance and no city slicker's pride would ever allow further inquiry; better to just wander along half lost.

Now, let's hone in on the essentials and summarize it; Away means you will pass several houses on the way to the old Simmons place; Up means that you will be traveling up hill, east means just what it says and the compass hasn't lied in the last million years; Just pass means no more houses between big oak curve and the house at the old Simmons place; Big oak curve is obviously a major kind of curve in the road since it was given a name; Country logic suggests that you will see a big oak tree somewhere on the curve; and finally 5 chains is a measure of distance. A chain is 66 feet. So, Mrs. Digger's house will be about 330 feet or about 100 yards off the road in a grove of oak trees. If someone needed to know what a grove was, they were quickly sent in another direction on the assumption that an encyclopedia salesman had no business out there in the first place.

Now if you ever find yourself in rural country and run across a store, you can swagger up to the counter with confidence and ask the storekeeper for directions, knowing that you'll understand. Don't wear a suit, drive an older car, and it will help your cause.

©2003 - William C. Humphries, Jr.