Armadillo Country

The countryside around the small town of Armadillo Creek is broken up by scenic wonders. There was a large man-made lake, with some of the purest waters to be found in the United States, there for the enjoyment of the residents and tourists who flock to the area. All around this lake is "government land"... that is, public land controlled and managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the State Parks Department.

There are a few tourist areas, and resorts, and the sort, along certain parts of the shoreline of this lake, but primarily, there are little camping areas and day use areas sprinkled all along the hundreds of miles of shoreline. Since the lake had been built in the forties, following World War II, by the time Johnny Miller was growing up, the area was settled down and just "there".

But at the time the lake was created, there were several small towns whose residents were forced to relocate, or find themselves under water. And in the current day, there are still some of those same towns, in existence, below water. It's turned into a scuba paradise, in some ways, in addition to a great fishing area.

In addition to the large lake, there are miles and miles of national forest, which actually cover most of the surface area of the county. The population, in the eighties, of the county was less than eight thousand residents, spread out of a rather large geographical area. The number of trees probably outnumber humans on a scale of millions or billions to one.

The school districts, all three of them, were spread out, located in some of the larger (relatively speaking) towns, with the county seat of Armadillo Creek hosting the largest school, which at the time of Johnny Miller's graduation, had a graduating class of forty-three students. The smallest school had less than a dozen in its graduating class. Children were typically bussed for miles and miles, with many kids on the bus an hour or more, morning and night.

But the compensation for this inconvenience was the lifestyle that allowed these kids the chance to become one with the world around them. It was nothing for Johnny and his brother to go wandering through the woods near their home, in the wintertime finding patches of ice in the creeks to skate on, or in the summertime, wandering the wilderness looking for wild animals or caves or waterfalls or anything that took their fancy.

In those days, there was no fear of strangers coming along and taking the kids, or of the kids falling and breaking a leg, for that matter. It seemed like the kids were used to handling themselves, and somehow they seemed tougher than many kids of today, in more urban areas.

Driving through the countryside around Armadillo Creek, one would note miles and miles of forest, broken here and there by farms.... but these farms were typically "country farms" where a few cows or pigs or other livestock were left to graze, and various types of hay might be cut a couple of times per year.... So although you will find some "farming" it's mostly cow pastures with a stream or a few trees, not the extensive fields of corn or soybeans or cotton that are found elsewhere.

There's still many a dirt road in the area, although over the past few years, more and more of them are at least being paved through the end of where the houses are, then gravel/dirt on through the unpopulated forests.

In these areas, in the seventies and eighties, when Johnny Miller was growing up, there were many tracts of forest that would be clear-cut of trees, and reseeded with pine trees to begin a new layer of forest. But, over the years, through the eighties and on into the nineties, and beyond, the large swaths of land used for this purpose have gotten smaller and smaller, till selective cutting has replaced much of the older-style clear cutting.

Southern Pine Beetle infestations have killed off some percentage of the pine forests, and more hardwoods have stepped in to take their place. It's probably a restoration of the natural order of things, as the area was predominately hardwood when the white man first began to settle in the early eighteen-hundreds. Over the years, the wildlife variety has changed somewhat, too. Early in the twentieth century the black bear population, the coyotes and wild foxes and many other creatures were hunted to the verge of extinction, and the white tail deer and turkey population plummeted as well.

But by the end of the twentieth century, order had once again returned, and it's not unusual to drive down a dirt road and spot a road runner running along ahead of you, and flying up to sit on a fencepost and watch you as you drive past. To see a bear, or a fox, though still unusual, is not that uncommon. And, if you sit quietly at night, either outside, or with a window open, you can hear the coyotes singing their song in the still evening air.