Trail Riding

            As the years progressed, the little girl began viewing Haddock much as her grandmother did, as a refuge in times of trouble.  That area of Jones County always offered a calmness, like seemingly no other place on earth.

            By high school, the granddaughter had developed the habit of trail riding through Haddock with her parents and siblings.  Her favorite horse was a huge American Saddle Horse named Lady. The Encyclopedia Britannica states “… the American Saddle Horse possesses several easy riding gaits and great vigour and style.”  Lady belonged to a couple of Joe and Lillian Craines’s best friends who often rode with them.

            Grandmother Louise didn’t ride horses anymore, but she delighted in knowing that her precious granddaughter could forget all her troubles in the same woods that had brought her peace and calm for over 60 years.

            Typically, the riders would saddle up just outside Gray, at Craine’s Lake.  Lady was so tall that even the leggy teenager had to climb into the saddle from the back of a pick-up truck!  Once in the saddle, however, it was nothing but smooth riding. Lady was the Cadillac model of horses.  She listened and responded to everything her rider needed.

            Trail riding is definitely a different way to see the world.  One of the family’s favorite routes was to ride to

Morton Road

, then connect to an old dirt road called Old Fortville.  Then they would wind farther and farther northeastward through the woods.  In the 1960’s and 1970’s, there were still dozens of ante-bellum and Victorian mansions scattered across the Haddock countryside.

            The riding party carried cameras, photographing the remains of a bygone era.  There was one particular home that lured them in every time.  More in tact than most, the weatherworn, columned porch beckoned.  The house was no longer accessible by car.  Perhaps it never had been. Grandmother Louise identified it from one of the photos as one of the many Haddock homes that had been abandoned before the turn of the century.  There were no signs of any kind outside, but Louise was also certain that several members of her own family had once lived there.

            Downstairs, vandals had long since looted the place, judging from the busted jewelry boxes and broken china cabinets.  However, the inside stairs were in good enough shape to take the visitors all the way into the attic.  There the young lady’s imagination could wander as she perused the old books and Civil War photos that still remained.

            The riders would spend more than a half hour, reading and pondering the past here.  They would leave every time convinced that the owners had been forced to flee their beautiful home. The young lady was always reluctant to leave, as she climbed into the high saddle from the front porch.

            After dozens of such rides on Sunday afternoons, she finally asked her grandmother.  “Why do you suppose that I can feel so peaceful after seeing such destruction and obvious sorrow in that old home, grandma?”

            “Well, sugar, that’s not all you’re picking up on when you’re there.  You’re sensing all the good times, not just the bad.  And evidently, judging by how you always feel, there was just a lot more good.”