<\/p>\n
The Horaltic Pose<\/em><\/b><\/p>\n By Tom Poland: A Southern Writer<\/em> <\/p>\n Back roads never disappoint me. Such was the case with a road, paved just a tad, but deliciously dirt the rest of the way. As I suspected, its name, Sardis, comes from the Bible, though it could be a family name. On a September Carolina Sunday I drove its length. It did not disappoint me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My journey began with a search for Camp Barstow Boy Scout Camp. After missing a sign and turning around three times I found it. A busy place with parents picking up scouts. I made a mental note to come back. My chief memory? The towering power line running through its parking area and the huge nests osprey and eagles had built atop towers. A sight like that fills me with mixed emotions. The raptors make do, that is they adapt to the loss of habitat, yet what ugly, menacing eyries towers make.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Making my way to Mt. Willing Road I found myself in places where vintage petunias grow and the Rose of Sharon blooms. A house 175 years old, with wooden pegs, some call them treenails, holding parts of it together … a curious outbuilding, an old produce stand, perhaps, that proudly displayed its owner’s patriotism.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Staying on Mt. Willing I crossed Highway 378 and turned left on Sardis Road. In short order I passed Sardis Church on the right. There’s a Church of Sardis in Revelation, a book my grandmother said was the Bible’s most terrifying.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sardis Road did not terrify me. It pleased me. My rearview mirror filmed my powdery contrail dusting leaves along the road’s shoulder. The road ahead hosted crows —everywhere — a crow convention was underway. No traffic to disturb them save me. In my rearview mirror I saw them congregate in my clouds of dust, cursing me perhaps with their crackling raucous caws.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n High shoulders bordered the road, a giveaway that Sardis Road is a road of the old days. And if that didn’t convince me of its age, a magnificent school, I hear tell, did. It seemed European in style and the buzzard atop a chimney agreed, spreading its wings wide in affirmation, the legendary horaltic pose.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To photograph the buzzard, I positioned my tripod near a cedar post. I placed my hand atop the post to steady myself and lo and behold, I found a pocketknife some luckless worker had placed there and forgotten. Yep, losers weepers, finders keepers. I imagine you haven’t heard that in a long while.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Down the road a piece I came across what I call the hay bale house. An old two-story southern home with a new tin roof (thank you owners) stared at big round bales that stared back. I would have preferred the old square bales (they’re rectangular, you know) because that would have been more authentic to older times.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The best thing about this back road? It revived memories of childhood family reunions, smokehouses, old farms, and sugarcane. To this day I see some relative from the past, a great uncle I believe, cutting stalks of sugarcane and slicing them up for the kids. We sucked on them mightily. Don’t you know they grew right beside a dirt road. God bless dirt roads.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When Sardis Road ran out so did the past. In short order I found myself in the present day amid traffic, vinyl siding, and all manner of development. I drove on with wooden pegs, vintage petunias, the Rose of Sharon, an old school, haybales, and buzzards and crows and the US flag flying through my mind. I had left the glorious past and gone back to the asylum. I promise you, though, I will escape and find yet another dirt road to the almighty salvation of the past.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Horaltic Pose By Tom Poland: A Southern WriterTomPoland.net Back roads never disappoint me. Such was the case with a road, paved just a tad, but deliciously dirt the rest of the way. As I suspected, its name, Sardis, comes from the Bible, though it could be a family name.Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56],"tags":[983,940],"class_list":["entry","author-john-griggs","post-7695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-columns","tag-a-southern-writer","tag-tom-poland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gpstrianglenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/School-Buzzard-_2025_630x350.jpg?fit=630%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
TomPoland.net<\/p>\n