By Tom Dodge, KERA Commentary
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-724251.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Buffalo Creek forks north of Cleburne and rolls southeast and southwest through the town. Pioneers who settled there did so because of the spring, now capped, which used to flow at the bridge on West Henderson Street. I grew up on the creek's east banks and with neighborhood friends like William Parnell explored most of its brushy terrain between the East Henderson Street bridge and Red Bridge, two or three miles north at Mansfield Road. In those days we had to thread our way along the polluted creek and through the thick undergrowth to get to Red Bridge to go "arrowhead hunting".
Now, thanks to the generosity of Cleburne taxpayers and the leadership of Joe Browder, one of our classmates who is President of the Buffalo Creek Beautification Project, there's a walking path there, at least for part of the way. It begins at the Alvarado Street bridge and continues north to George Washington Carver Park, which used to be, I think, part of the campus of now-defunct Booker T. Washington School.
A few days ago William and I parked our car at the old Santa Fe Elementary, where we began together in the first grade, and sauntered along the creek for the first time in nearly sixty years. He's tall and thin with bright blue eyes and lots of hair as white as milled cotton. He stills walks fast and I still lag behind. We wanted to see an example of how a community can work together to combat pollution and ugliness.
In our day the Santa Fe Railroad pumped its waste into the creek behind Booker T. Washington school, covering the water with an oily scum. It ran alongside Santa Fe school too and, unbelievably, no one complained. Industries throughout the country still do this but our awareness has been elevated to the point that we punish them with heavy fines if they're caught. So the railroad repair company which replaced the Santa Fe shops, gone since 1984, are forbidden by law to do it. We were able to see the water bottom in that area for the first time. We even saw minnows and fish.
Since the trail ends short of Red Bridge we backtracked to the car and drove to it. Red Bridge isn't red anymore and isn't made of wood. It's concrete and colorless. We went there because we wanted to see the field we used to scour for arrowheads and other Indian artifacts in the spring when the farmer plowed it for planting. It's grown up now with weeds.
William still looks for artifacts but now in a scientific way. As a professional he doesn't approve of what we did then in our ignorance. He counsels amateurs, hoping to prevent them from further disturbing ancient sites. He disparages those doing it for profit.
We stood on the bridge and surveyed our past. Thinking about our new awareness of nature and our place in it, we decided that we're all responsible, in one way or another, for the dangerous state in which we now find ourselves. One small town cleaned up its creek. It's a good example for the rest of us.
Tom Dodge is a writer from Midlothian.
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