Woolper

Woolper

I am going back through my writing journal kept while a student of Casey Fleming and Cameron Dezen Hammon. If you like the entries, it is a reflection of great teaching!  If you don't, I take the blame.

Response to writing prompt on 12/1/16

Write about a road you know well. Where does it start, end, what is it called, what does it call you....

The Mighty Woolper (Woolpert if you are my grandfather) is what we call the tributary that meanders at the base of the foothills of the Ohio River. It carries crawdads, catfish, and cranky teenage girls in canoes. It harbors water mocassins, brownish foam, and snapping turtles. It runs in loopy zigzags adjacent to a winding road that bears its name. Connecting the road and creek is a 1/4 mile paved path that was first worn down by migrating snapping turtles.

This is the drive I traversed after my first date. The uneven rutted terrain is what I scarcely saw through a dance of leaf silhouettes filtering moonlight. I travelled the path alone on foot in order to save the undercarriage of a Camaro. It was the site of a head on dirt bike collision, the exclamation point at the end of two oncoming sentences made up only of a sibling's name at full volume and terror.

It is the manifestation of leaving the stage and entering the play.

It is the gateway to God's country.

It is the path that holds me to a turtle's pace.

It is the way to my happy place.

(the image is a photo of the driveway with a digital sketch overlay)