I retired from being a caseworker in 2006. Friends asked me what did I plan to do. I told them I wanted to drive the roads my father built. It sounds simple but it is far from that. It is more like a quest for that impossible dream like tilting at windmills.
My father Joseph Archer Todd, Sr. was a man of raw talent, dreams and a mind that could not be quenched. He had a difficult childhood including part of it growing up on the chain gang. His father was on the chain gang and his mother became cook and laundress. For about three to five years they lived in tents and moved all across South Carolina in the early 1920s. My father dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen years old. He then met my mother who changed his life. He wanted better for himself. He was in the Civilian Conservation Corps at Camp Pearson where he learned to be a surveyor and made extra money boxing. He got a few jobs locally surveying and married my mother Louise Rainey. The smartest thing he ever did. He helped to survey the main street of Greenwood, SC. In 1940 he began work with the Bureau of Public roads which built the parkways through our national parks and national forests. He would leave briefly when he was drafted into World War II. He would be back farming when two men came down from Washington, DC according to my mother and asked him to return to work with the BPR. He would also go as a Civil Engineer. Da had taken correspondence courses and worked every night on becoming a civil engineer. I have had many people tell me how hard he studied, and knowing how he studied almost every night of my childhood, I had no doubt that he did. He would work himself up the ladder from that point until he was division engineer over Region 15.
Da built many roads, but his favorite was the Blue Ridge Parkway. It would be that road I would begin my quest. On May 15th 2018, I began that quest. It has been difficult to explain the feelings I had that day. I had spent many days on the parkway especially in my first eight years. There are pictures of me as a toddler playing with gravel at one site or another where they were building roads. I remember my hands often on rocks. A love I inherited from my father. He would often put me on his shoulders so I could see an example of iron ore in the rocks and all the while he explained to me how they were formed. I could name the three types of rocks by the time I was five years old. Not only did he do that he wrote poetry and stories along the way and often at night after a long day of work he worked again writing about a flower he had seen or a story that he heard that day. As I drove that day, I could feel him close by pointing out a view I needed to see. I heard him tell me about the rocks and I found myself looking for iron ore in rocks along with the drill marks where they dropped the dynamite to blow up the side of a mountain. When I saw the wild flowers, I remember his constant teaching me about the plants and how some will not survive without certain fungi being in the soil where they would live. He taught me to talk to strangers for he did. I found myself talking to people I would not see again, and asking them their story.
Then I came to Standing Rock. The rock my father fought to keep. As I stood there I remembered how he fought to keep that rock standing. There became a joke among the workers calling it "Joe Todd's Rock" and they tried to get it named for him. I also remember a photo of me standing beneath this rock. I walked around this huge boulder with all its colors of grey and brown, and I knew I had to touch it. I walked across the grass, and I felt a closeness to Da that I had missed since his death in 1987. I placed both hands upon the surface of that rock and felt the history of not only that parkway but the history of that man who loved roads so very much, who loved beauty so much that he wanted others to see and enjoy it. He and the other men that worked with him gave a gift to our nation. I am proud of their work. I am proud of him. Before I let go of all that history, I closed my eyes just to remember that moment of perfection that I felt. It was at that moment I was committed to this quest.
I got home and the reality of my life kicked me in the face. I have had issued with my blood for at least 20 years. It took me to the edge of dying more than once, and I know the signs better than most. Two days ago I got word that something that is not good to be elevated is elevated, but I am seeing the blood doctor soon because I had asked for the appointment to be moved up the week before. I do not like not knowing things. I can face alone whatever comes if I know what is coming. My heart also seemed to cry most because the quest that I have waited so long to begin was again being put behind me. I may have to do shorter trips, but I want to do this quest. It is very important to me.
I have often said I am a warrior born. I joke that it is my Scottish and Viking blood that is the Warrior in me. I write poems about Viking ships and my doodles are usually of Viking ships. Every year I write one poem about Viking ships. I have a quest, and quests are made for those who are warriors. My father was a warrior, but thankfully both of us had my mother in our lives for she was always a peacemaker. It is her voice that guides me to reason. I know I can do this. I just need everyone to believe no matter what comes that I can do this, and like so much in my life I can face it alone and with dignity.
Having said that, somewhere along the way, I may need from time to time someone to ride the road with me. I need to make more money (I am not asking for money just a fact of my life) and thus I have been working on my novel again, and I need to get my book on grief out there. I also am a caretaker, and I want those to learn from my journey though grief to give them a map of how it may go... I know each journey is different but I still do not know how I came through the loss of twelve people in two years and survived as normal as I ever was... which is questionable. I also need books lots of books on parkways. I have one I found on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I need others, and does anyone have any idea how to get my father's work records and what exact roads did he work on... I am talking more about the ones in Kentucky, Michigan and Minnesota.
So join me in this quest. I do love adventures. I believe that whenever I step out my door there is a possibility of an adventure.
Step Out My Door
There is a journey to make...
An adventure waiting...
It is all in perspectives...
Others may see
A trip to buy groceries...
I see possibilities.
I like possibilities.
Mary Elizabeth Todd
November 10, 2017
My father Joseph Archer Todd, Sr. was a man of raw talent, dreams and a mind that could not be quenched. He had a difficult childhood including part of it growing up on the chain gang. His father was on the chain gang and his mother became cook and laundress. For about three to five years they lived in tents and moved all across South Carolina in the early 1920s. My father dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen years old. He then met my mother who changed his life. He wanted better for himself. He was in the Civilian Conservation Corps at Camp Pearson where he learned to be a surveyor and made extra money boxing. He got a few jobs locally surveying and married my mother Louise Rainey. The smartest thing he ever did. He helped to survey the main street of Greenwood, SC. In 1940 he began work with the Bureau of Public roads which built the parkways through our national parks and national forests. He would leave briefly when he was drafted into World War II. He would be back farming when two men came down from Washington, DC according to my mother and asked him to return to work with the BPR. He would also go as a Civil Engineer. Da had taken correspondence courses and worked every night on becoming a civil engineer. I have had many people tell me how hard he studied, and knowing how he studied almost every night of my childhood, I had no doubt that he did. He would work himself up the ladder from that point until he was division engineer over Region 15.
Da built many roads, but his favorite was the Blue Ridge Parkway. It would be that road I would begin my quest. On May 15th 2018, I began that quest. It has been difficult to explain the feelings I had that day. I had spent many days on the parkway especially in my first eight years. There are pictures of me as a toddler playing with gravel at one site or another where they were building roads. I remember my hands often on rocks. A love I inherited from my father. He would often put me on his shoulders so I could see an example of iron ore in the rocks and all the while he explained to me how they were formed. I could name the three types of rocks by the time I was five years old. Not only did he do that he wrote poetry and stories along the way and often at night after a long day of work he worked again writing about a flower he had seen or a story that he heard that day. As I drove that day, I could feel him close by pointing out a view I needed to see. I heard him tell me about the rocks and I found myself looking for iron ore in rocks along with the drill marks where they dropped the dynamite to blow up the side of a mountain. When I saw the wild flowers, I remember his constant teaching me about the plants and how some will not survive without certain fungi being in the soil where they would live. He taught me to talk to strangers for he did. I found myself talking to people I would not see again, and asking them their story.
Then I came to Standing Rock. The rock my father fought to keep. As I stood there I remembered how he fought to keep that rock standing. There became a joke among the workers calling it "Joe Todd's Rock" and they tried to get it named for him. I also remember a photo of me standing beneath this rock. I walked around this huge boulder with all its colors of grey and brown, and I knew I had to touch it. I walked across the grass, and I felt a closeness to Da that I had missed since his death in 1987. I placed both hands upon the surface of that rock and felt the history of not only that parkway but the history of that man who loved roads so very much, who loved beauty so much that he wanted others to see and enjoy it. He and the other men that worked with him gave a gift to our nation. I am proud of their work. I am proud of him. Before I let go of all that history, I closed my eyes just to remember that moment of perfection that I felt. It was at that moment I was committed to this quest.
I got home and the reality of my life kicked me in the face. I have had issued with my blood for at least 20 years. It took me to the edge of dying more than once, and I know the signs better than most. Two days ago I got word that something that is not good to be elevated is elevated, but I am seeing the blood doctor soon because I had asked for the appointment to be moved up the week before. I do not like not knowing things. I can face alone whatever comes if I know what is coming. My heart also seemed to cry most because the quest that I have waited so long to begin was again being put behind me. I may have to do shorter trips, but I want to do this quest. It is very important to me.
I have often said I am a warrior born. I joke that it is my Scottish and Viking blood that is the Warrior in me. I write poems about Viking ships and my doodles are usually of Viking ships. Every year I write one poem about Viking ships. I have a quest, and quests are made for those who are warriors. My father was a warrior, but thankfully both of us had my mother in our lives for she was always a peacemaker. It is her voice that guides me to reason. I know I can do this. I just need everyone to believe no matter what comes that I can do this, and like so much in my life I can face it alone and with dignity.
Having said that, somewhere along the way, I may need from time to time someone to ride the road with me. I need to make more money (I am not asking for money just a fact of my life) and thus I have been working on my novel again, and I need to get my book on grief out there. I also am a caretaker, and I want those to learn from my journey though grief to give them a map of how it may go... I know each journey is different but I still do not know how I came through the loss of twelve people in two years and survived as normal as I ever was... which is questionable. I also need books lots of books on parkways. I have one I found on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I need others, and does anyone have any idea how to get my father's work records and what exact roads did he work on... I am talking more about the ones in Kentucky, Michigan and Minnesota.
So join me in this quest. I do love adventures. I believe that whenever I step out my door there is a possibility of an adventure.
Step Out My Door
There is a journey to make...
An adventure waiting...
It is all in perspectives...
Others may see
A trip to buy groceries...
I see possibilities.
I like possibilities.
Mary Elizabeth Todd
November 10, 2017