My Music Journal 2025: December 19, 2025

 

Friday, December 19, 2025

Time: 2:00 PM
Song: End of the Road
Artist: Margo Price
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Release Radar playlist on Spotify.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/6nsAK8bbe4gMZhuVMjzFqg?si=c60ef8f90ae447b1

I grew up on a gravel road that is almost exactly 1 mile long. It runs west off IL Rte. 40 before coming to a “T” at the next cross road.

In that mile, there are five houses, three on the north side of the road, and two on the south side.

The first house is obscured from the road behind old machinery, junk, and overgrowth. This started when I was very young, I remember watching the man who lived there gradually pull in machinery and piles of junk and then leave them sit. He’s still alive, but he’s moved to another house where he’s slowly working on doing the same thing.

The next house was owned by an old couple, who drove around the neighborhood in a white Volkswagen convertible when I was young. Then they left, in part because of the dump that was growing next to them.

A man eventually moved in. He, at one point, was keeping a horse next to the house, and over time a tall pile of dung built in his yard. The horse is gone now, but he also likes to buy things like boats, so it always appears cluttered.

A couple with three adopted kids moved into the next house sometime when I was in grade school. The oldest of those kids used to come down to our house sometimes. He liked looking at baseball cards, but he also had sticky fingers, so I eventually found reasons to not let him in the house.

They are all gone now. The couple has passed away, and I believe even that oldest boy died. I don’t know the details.

Across the road for them is house that has multiple tenants over the years. One of them turned the white siding a bright yellow, and I used to joke that the house glowed in the dark. It’s owned by someone out of the area now, and for many years, they rented to various Hispanic people, who tended to the horses. The last renters were caught selling meth recently, so I think the place is sitting empty now.

My parent’s house and the surrounding farm land comes next. Our family has owned the place for over a hundred years. I am not sure what will happen to the big brick house when they either can’t live on their own anymore or they pass on.