Walnut Lane
© Lannie Dietle 2026
There was a road. It weren't a highway.
It went to a house
that ain't there no more.
The road was rough. The road was rocky.
Crackled paint on the old front door.
We drove real slow cause it was bumpy.
That kind of road shook a car apart.
I see the old front door in my dearest memories.
A wood-fired stove. The warmth of kindred hearts.
We're gathering eggs for tomorrow's breakfast,
We're drinkin' water from a spring-fed source.
The cattle are lowing in the new red barn.
See the mountain view from our back porch.
There's the Lepley farm with the big stone house.
The gunsmith's shop, and his steady hand.
There's the old stone barn on the Blubaugh place,
Where family cleared and worked the land.
I'll be back there soon. There ain't no doubt.
I'll join them there among sandstone slabs.
Saplings will sprout. Big trees grow and fall.
Tombstones topple down, leavin' no one sad.
I won't mind a bit when field turns to forest.
When folks come by, they'll have a little shade.
Plant me on the ridge with folks that I love.
The years march on, and memories fade.
There was a road. It weren't a highway.
It went to a house that ain't there no more.
The road was rough. The road was rocky.
Crackled paint on the old front door.
Take me down that road on my last journey.
I loved that road when it was just a trail.
Ya don't need no hearse. Just take me on a wagon,
and remember me when I was young and hale.
Oh, remember me,
Back when I was young and hale.
The song lyrics are based on some of my earliest memories, and in those memories the road that led to the farm — now known as Walnut Lane — was little more than a rocky trail. Back then, in the 1950s, my father always drove very slowly on that road so the bumpy ride wouldn't "shake the car apart." The photo at the top of the page is a frame grab from a 2023 video that has been computer modified to show what the road looked like in the 1950s, long before it was blacktopped.
In the nearby Cook Cemetery, where five generations of my ancestors are buried, the oldest tombstones are cut from erosion-resistant sandstone. We purchased a burial plot there several years ago.
Most of the elements in the song — such as the bumpy mountain road, the farmhouse and its supporting springs, the wood-fired cook stove, the chicken coops, the "new barn," the Lepley gunsmith shop, and the Lepley stone house — are referenced in my 2024 book "In the Land of Used to Be."
L. Dietle
