Headed South on Territory Road, circa 1900 — when it was a Plank Road.

The main thoroughfare through Oysterville when I was a child was Fourth Street.  It was graveled and we just called it “the road.”  It wasn’t exactly the center of activity but it was the main way to get wherever we wanted to be.  On land, that is.  The men of the village were probably more oriented toward the bay, at least in terms of their work days.

I don’t remember ever being told not to play in the road.  Cars and trucks weren’t really a problem.  Not only were they few and far between, you had plenty of warning that they were on their way.  Gravel is crunchy, for one thing, and progress was often snail-paced as people slowed to take a look at how Bob Kemmer was coming on painting his boat or whether Harry had finished up the fence on the south side of his meadow.

We didn’t get many strangers in town — especially not during the week or during the winter months.  And when we did get visitors, they were usually expected — even when they were not our visitors.  In a little place the size of this, we were excited no matter whose friends or relatives were coming to town.  It was always an occasion!

Looking South on Territory Road, Oysterville, c. 1920 — when it was sand or mud, depending on the season.

In my mother’s time — during the 1910s and 1920s, the road was even more tranquil.  One of our family stories that my Uncle Willard wrote about,  even though it was about himself, went like this: …by my third birthday I was reading easily, and by four my preferred reading was any book big enough to give me trouble carrying it.  I read wherever I happened to find myself – in the yard, in the privy, in the barn.  I am told that I had a curious habit of reading myself to sleep in the front road, often quite naked.  I cannot remember this at all. 

These days, we are more cautious, of course — both about what we are wearing and where we read.  When grandchildren are visiting, their grandparents put out those “Caution” Children at Play” signs and, where it’s possible, most pedestrians walk along the county right-of-way — “the verge” as we call it.  If several residents meet along the road whether on foot or in vehicles, they are likely to stop and exchange the latest village news.  We’ve long called those discussions “Oysterville Meetings” — often the source of the news disseminated by the Oyster Shell Telegraph. These days, too, the official name of the road is Territory Road — hearkening back to what it was back in the beginning, or so it says on the Historic Oysterville Map.  I don’t know how it got to be Fourth Street, but I’m glad it’s back to Territory Road now.

Walking on Territory Road in 2012 when, as now, it was asphalt.

I thought about all these road experiences yesterday after Vespers as I visited with people leaving the church.  We were, of course, in the road — though enough to the side that we didn’t present a hazard.  I didn’t get home (a two minute walk) until after five o’clock — so many people to talk with after Cate and Starla’s Vesper performance.  A perfect ending to a perfect afternoon!