Very near Signpost is a little village called Sinnickson Virginia and the road to it just off Fleming Rd is “Red Hills Rd”, we always just called it all- Red Hills. There was a dock down there for launching your boat, and a beach area. I remember going there to swim a few times and maybe a picnic, but what I mostly remember are the flies that bite!

I think this is where the boat races launched from but I’m not sure. Years ago my dad said Leon Sparrow had a restaurant and sometimes he had country music singers come sing at his place when they were on their traveling circuit. My dad thinks he remembers as a kid seeing Dolly Parton there when she was just starting out and for that reason he claims shes older than what she says she is. Hahaha, I’ve always loved Dolly, but my dad surely does not. He also said there was a guest book that he’d have them all sign and that his daughter who lives in Temperenceville might still have it. He also claims Patsy Cline came thru Red Hills one time. My dad loves Patsy Cline and years ago I surprised him with a car trip to Winchester Virginia to visit her hometown. Those are his memories though…

We used to ride our bikes on that road and there was a tree that had my cloth diaper tied around it for many years. I remember looking for it every time we went that way. My dad told me he had treed a coon up that tree when he was coon hunting and tied one of my diapers there so he knew which tree to turn his dogs lose at next time. Eventually it rotted away and is long gone now but I remember looking for my diaper each time we went down there. Along that area is also a huge tree that the area was known for. Its been written about before but I cant recall what type of tree it is now. We visited the tree as kids and I carved my name in it amongst all the other names and letters. It took “x” amount of people holding hands to fit around it.

The turtle-back road where the road tar would bubble up in the summertime when it was so hot outside is so vivid in my mind. I popped a many a tar bubble and had a black stained big toe many times. It took days for that to wear off! The locusts making that sizzzzzing sound over and over and frogs in the distance. Now and again a bobwhite would say his name. In some ways it was yesterday, and other ways it was 50 years ago – but in all ways it was a glorious time to be a child.