This is our road, Birch Drive. From our home to the farthest point in this first photo is three-tenths of a mile. At the other end is Jetty’s Pond, or so I call it. Jetty swam in it regularly until its lot was purchased and developed into a homesite. It’s an old water-filled gravel pit.

From the pond, the drive turns north for several hundred yards and ends. Going the other way, it entertains a couple of curves before a long, straight, steep run to Highway 61.

We’ve walked the bit from our home to the pond and back many thousands of times in the 20+ years since we built our house, twice a day most days, and, for most of the last 14 years, with beloved Norwegian Elkhound Scarlett, though she now is too old and arthritic to make it all the way to the pond.

I can tell you where every Juneberry tree is, where the salsify plants are, where Shasta daisies grow from seeds we scattered years ago, where we watch the red osier dogwood go through its fascinating seasonal phases, where this one willow sits near the pond and always is the first each spring with pussy willows, which neighbor Maryl immediately notices.

The drive’s fauna are just as varied, and variable from year to year – rabbits, thick some years, gone totally in others; lots of deer and fawns then few; wolves now and then, in person or through their hairy deposits on the drive; intensely black bears, seen sporadically or known through broken Juneberry bushes and seedy black road deposits; foxes, fishers, martens, a rare weasel and a rarer moose. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the drive recently. It has gone through quite a lot this summer. It was graded and then dressed with a welcome new layer of gravel, then was graded again. The person operating the grader on the second occasion was named Ben. He took quite a lot of time and care to get it right. He seemed to respect the road and what it means to us – which is to say, he respected us. I was impressed and told him so; most of the time whatever attention the drive gets is a lick and a promise, except in winter when the plowing is early and superb.

After the drive got its new gravel coat and grading, it was treated to a spray of calcium chloride that will keep the dust down and make life much more bearable – though the spray crew was very stingy with the width of the application. The drive has never looked so good since it was upgraded to a county road more than 20 years ago. 

Trouble is, the newly decked-out drive immediately took a huge blow when an assaulting legion of noisy, speedy, Jake Brake-using dump trucks beat the crap out of it on their way to deposit loads at a building site. The result was predictable: Instant washboarding that makes an ascent of the hill a jiggering torture unless you choose just the right line. We likely will have to live with that for a longish while.

I was grousing about the quality of gravel-road maintenance in the county recently, and a friend retorted, “They’re just dirt roads.”

But you see, that’s precisely the point: Our drive – and I am sure this is true for numerous other Cook County byways – is not “just a dirt road.” It is our community commons, the place where we share news and experiences and pains and sorrows and joys and gardens and wine and tools and dogs and so much more. 

My wife, who is British, compares our three-tenths of a mile of drive to a rural English pub, the gathering spot for the village. It rings true. 

I’ve walked Birch Drive on hot days, sub-zero days and sublime fall days, and so have most of our community. Although we live far from any sidewalks, we have a walkable neighborhood, and, boy, do we walk.

I’ve walked it daily to empty the dog and to empty myself of anger or grief and sadness. I’ve walked it to think and walked it Thich-Nhat-Hanh style to meditate without thought. I’ve walked it alone and with others. I’ve taken far more photos on the drive than anywhere else, including some of family that have become precious.

A few weeks ago, standing on the road, we wished Godspeed to a neighbor on her way abroad to sit with a dying brother. On my birthday, I met neighbor and glass artist Mary in the middle of the road where she put in my hands the most magnificent glass dish, so unexpected and impressive it moved me to tears. Maryl and Jetty have a tradition of meeting to exchange flowers, most recently a gorgeous yellow peony from Maryl’s garden.

Ria and Barbara, sometimes joined by Mary, can be heard as they walk past on a constitutional. Gary and Janice the same. We frequently meet and walk with Keith and his Daisy, or Mary and her Yogi. George in his golf cart stopped to chat a few days back; he owns the pond lot and visits just occasionally while most of the rest of us are year-round residents. 

Just a few days ago Keith helped Jetty think through a project as they walked and then contributed the wood to complete it. Often I encounter Mark and his Buddha dog, Jade, who loves to sit and meditate on the drive.

Maybe some roads in Cook County are strictly for getting from point A to point B, but Birch Drive isn’t one of them. I suspect the same is true of many other rural byways. Recently I heard a county commissioner say that because the price for calcium chloride had gone up, the county would have to reduce the amount it purchased, to which my unspoken response was, “Huh? Why do you automatically land on that: Price goes up so we will serve our constituents less well.” 

Last year, Birch Drive got a minimal grading and rapidly grew rutted. The excuse for the lack of attention was that highway crews spent a long spring and early summer dealing with the impacts of widespread flooding. That does seem reasonable; on the other hand, I’m not allowed to say that because of a horrible financial year, I’m not able to pay my taxes this year. Why one but not the other? 

Yes, a specious argument, but grant me a general point: That our road is not some low-level asset which gets attention when convenient. Birch Drive is much, much more. And keeping it in good repair – indeed, respecting its full function and the people who live along it – is, day in and day out, the most important service the county provides us.