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Gemstones in the Sand

There is a place I like to physically visit occasionally, but most often I go there in my mind. As a child I hated it. As an adult I have come to realize how very special that place once was and how living there dramatically influenced my life.
Just across the Saint Mary's River in the backwoods of northeast Florida is a long, straight and sandy road. You could stand in the middle of it, look in either direction and it seemed to go on forever until it was swallowed up in the forest. About midway of that road was a house, the only house and it was my house as a child. I lived there with my parents, older brother and younger sister until I was ten years old.

Being out in the middle of nowhere, I felt isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. The nearest neighbor or store was ten miles away. School, some twenty miles away, and reading were my only links to the outside world. The one exception was Sunday dinners at Grandma's house which was also in nowhere land. My cousins who lived in the big city of Jacksonville attended these routine Sunday dinners. They would tell us all about the big city life. I was so envious of them, yet they enjoyed spending summers with us in the country.
The long sandy road had very little traffic providing us kids with an excellent place to play and explore. In the spring wildflowers bloomed alongside the road. The prolific fragrant blooms of yellow jasmine were like randomly tossed Christmas lights shining among the trees. On the forest floor beneath the canopy of stately pines grew the delicate, purple blooms of wild violets. Down at the creek the sweet aroma of the pink spidery-looking blooms of wild honeysuckle filled the air. My sister and I would pick an array of the pretty flowers and take them home to mama. She would place them in an old crackled vase she cherished.
In the summer the road of white, powdery sand would be warm, sometimes even hot. I loved to feel it sift between my toes and crunch beneath my feet. My sister and I would look for diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds sparkling in the sand. We would collect them and save them like treasure. Though only shards of brightly colored glass, they were precious gemstones to us.
Blackberries also grew along the roadside. We would get an old coffee can and pick until the can was running over with plump, sweet, juicy berries. With purple stained fingers and teeth we would take the berries home to mama. She would then make a blackberry

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