Prose Appreciation: The Road to Hometown

What a big change in my hometown! The beautiful mountain scenery, the ever-changing villages, and the rows of brand-new buildings are refreshing and refreshing. However, what surprised me the most was the wide and flat cement avenue under the car - the road connecting every village has been built right in front of my house!

In the late 1990s, there was not a single decent road in our village. They were all dirt roads. On sunny days, we were covered with dirt, and when it rained, our feet were covered with mud. Especially during the wheat harvest season, even the harvesters can't get in, so it's up to the villagers to cut the fields one by one. The villagers have to walk more than ten miles of country roads to go to the market. On rainy days, the muddy road splashes mud and water all over people; on sunny days, the potholed roads make it difficult to ride a bicycle, and you have to be careful even when walking to avoid spraining your feet. "If you have a daughter, don't marry Erdaohe. Erdaohe is a grass garden." Those winding country roads and the never-ending grasses in the rivers and fields are my clearest memories of my hometown. When I was going to school in the village or countryside, I was most afraid of Sundays and rainy days, because I had to herd cattle. Often the feet are bare, stepping in the puddles, and the feet are always beaten red. When I go to school in the city, I go home every semester for spring planting, autumn harvest or Chinese New Year. My heart is full of hate and love. I love the rich local flavor of my hometown, the simple family affection, the beautiful scenery, the rich customs, the peaceful life, and the lazy habits, but I am very afraid of walking on those long dirt roads. It's the same ten-mile journey, but it always feels like the road in the countryside is much longer than the one in the city. I remember one time when I went home for a vacation, it happened to be rainy and snowy. I got off the bus on the street and borrowed a bicycle to go home. The bicycle could not go 50 meters in the village, and it couldn't move anymore. The thick mud clogged the wheels. Stop moving! I was so anxious that I really wanted to cry, so I had to use a stick to poke away the mud balls before walking. To this day, I can still feel the feeling of helplessness and exhaustion while walking on the path.

The trails have left a series of arduous footprints carried by the villagers on their shoulders and carried by mules and horses for generations, filled with the bitterness and tears of the villagers' difficult life in every era. In winter, the muddy dirt road is frozen as hard as iron; in summer, heavy rains wash out the already narrow mountain road into ditches and bumps, making it beyond recognition and making it difficult even for rickshaws to walk. So the villagers divided the area into sections and hauled in sand and soil, which often took a week or two before they could walk. When I was young, every holiday or Sunday, I would go to the mountains to chop wood with my father. I remember one morning in late autumn, my father and I went up the mountain to collect firewood again, but to get to the mountain to dry firewood we had to pass through a low cave and a narrow mountain road filled with ankle-deep water. When we arrived at the entrance of the cave, my father forced me to sit on the cart. I refused to say anything because I knew it would be difficult for my father to pull me through the cave. But in the end-----I couldn't resist my father, so I had to take my father's shoes and get in the car. The cave was about half a mile long. My father struggled to pull the car and shouted loudly: "One, two, three, four------" Nearly 40 minutes passed, and my father finally pulled me out of the cave. When I got off the car, I accidentally dropped the ax in the water. I reached out to pick it up and said, "Oh, it's so cold!" A heart-to-heart coldness made me shiver all over. Looking at my father's feet that were red and swollen from the cold, tears burst into my eyes. 40 minutes of soaking! While I was moved by this deep and broad father's love, I also hated the dark caves and the narrow, bumpy mountain roads filled with sewage. I also looked forward to when there would be a broad road ------

The wish finally came true, the sandy dirt road finally turned into a concrete avenue, and even the half-mile-long cave path was built to be able to pass a tractor. In 1997, the villagers raised funds to build an arch water bridge with 8 piers, more than 3 meters wide and more than 100 meters long. Since then, the villagers have ended the history of having to wade across the river to go to the market. On the day of the opening, the 76-year-old Uncle Wang stroked his beard, touched the smooth road, and kept saying, "I never dreamed that this would happen!" The villagers jumped, danced, and danced on the small bridge. Sing, everyone is in high spirits and high spirits, and the laughter echoes over the ravine! In 1998, the County Tourism Bureau invested in the development of two tourist attractions, "Tianxin Cave" and "Qixingtan" in my hometown. As a result, the grade of the highway was improved again, and the cement highway ran from the county seat to my hometown in the mountains. The road surface was widened, greening was carried out on both sides, and landscape trees were planted. During festivals, the broad avenues leading to tourist attractions are crowded with people. Tourists from all directions flock here to taste the charm of the beautiful mountains and clear waters of their hometown, to taste the sincere joy of the mountain people, and to taste the delicious life of the mountain people. Their arrival has broadened the horizons of the villagers, activated their economy, and updated their concepts. Take our village as an example. The old thatched houses have become rows of brand-new bungalows; The tunnels are all made of hardened cement and can pass a large vehicle. There are no more out-of-school children grazing cattle and sheep, because with the care of the county and township governments, they have returned to school and embarked on the path of seeking knowledge. So every year in the dozen or so small villages in my hometown, several college students fly out of the mountains on the newly built roads with the ardent hopes of their fathers and the pride of the mountain people, and become useful talents for the country.

I remember returning to my hometown during the wheat harvest, walking on the flat and straight roads in the villages, not to mention the "refreshing" feeling in my heart, it was so comfortable. Mr. Wang, who was busy in the fields at the head of the village, saw me coming back, so he walked over and started chatting with me.

He said happily, "Unexpectedly, our village has become almost like the county town today!"

My father is an old party member and has been a team leader for more than 30 years. He is 76 years old this year. He is deeply moved by the idea of ??access to every village. He said that the arrival of the harvester alone freed the villagers from heavy labor. In the 1970s, it took nearly a month to harvest wheat from the beginning to the end of the harvest. In the 1980s, when the villagers finished harvesting the wheat, although they no longer used oxen to drag the stone rollers to thresh the fields, the small wheat harvesting machine was still used. It will take more than half a month to get started. This year, the road has been repaired, and a large combine harvester goes into the field at the right time to cut, dry, and remove the debris. It only takes a family two to three days at most to harvest the wheat. He was filled with emotion: It was the access roads in every village that made mechanization a reality. The young and old men in our village harvested wheat this year with much less effort and sweat less! It only takes 23 hours to cut all 5 acres of wheat.

Now that the road is ready, the villagers have planted wheat in all the plots that can be harvested with a harvester. During the wheat harvest, harvesters run back and forth in the golden wheat fields all over the mountains and plains... Within a few days, hundreds of acres of wheat grains in the whole village were returned to the warehouse. In the past, the scene of harvesting wheat with sickles can no longer be seen, and the villagers no longer need to I am worried that the arrival of the rainy season will delay the wheat harvest. This is all the work of every village!

More than twenty years ago, there was a lively scene of road construction in the village. Although the standards at that time were still relatively low, after all, the road to the outside of the village was opened, and the villagers said goodbye to shoulder-to-shoulder burdens. A life of pulling a rickshaw. Today, the roads in the countryside have been hardened and paved with cement. The rural roads are like ribbons, connecting the village with the world outside the village; the bridges on the rivers are like rainbows, realizing people's dream of becoming well-off; The production avenue is a strip of brocade silk, with plows and harvesters sprinkled with joyful songs; the courtyards are connected by lanes, and there is no longer the trouble of mud and dust, and there is no longer the pollution of smelly water and garbage.

There are also roads that can be walked in the deep mountains and old forests. This is really a great and gratifying thing!

In autumn, villagers in Toudaohe Village, Yangzhuang Village, Houping Village... in their hometown have built greenhouses next to the road. Various cash crops are grown in the greenhouses, especially In early winter, the green scenery in the greenhouse is particularly dazzling. There are vegetables, fruits, chickens and ducks in the greenhouse. In addition to being sold on the streets, they were also transported to county towns.

What makes me even more excited is that a modern bridge wide enough to drive two large trucks side by side has been built on the Toudao River in my hometown, Qiliping Township. The bridge railings are high and beautiful, and the bridge deck is wide. And flat, it is majestic and beautiful, compared with the Xintuan River Three Bridges in the county. It is in sharp contrast to the low and narrow old bridge downstream. I heard from the villagers that this bridge was funded by the state.

The wide roads opened the door to prosperity for the villagers. Among the golden fields and beside the fragrant orchards, ribbons lead into the distance. The faces covered with vicissitudes of life smile so brightly. The dreams of generations have become a reality today. The face full of innocence and the smile are so carefree, no longer worried about the mud on sunny days, the mud on rainy days blurs the eyes and dirty clothes...

The wide roads have changed the traditional life of farmers. The way of living, food, clothing, housing, transportation and entertainment have undergone qualitative changes. In the past, drinking and playing cards were popular during the off-season, and farmers had no other entertainment options. Now, scientific farming, scientific breeding, and getting rich through science and technology have become farmers' new pursuits, and their amateur cultural life has become more colorful. Farmers installed program-controlled telephones in their homes and bought motorcycles, agricultural vehicles and even vans.

The highway in my hometown is the link between the city and the countryside, the bridge between the government and the people, and a golden road to enrich the people and strengthen the village..."

Ah, the highway in my hometown. , do you only bring convenience and comfort to people? No, you are a symbol of civilization and progress, reflecting the glory and warmth of the party in you!

Author! Introduction: Liu Lijuan, female, Han nationality, born in 1967, ID number:, is a member of the Nanyang City Writers Association of Henan Province and the deputy secretary-general of the Neixiang County Federation of Literary and Art Circles Association. She has appeared in "Hot Wind", "Gong Geng", "New Family", " He has published more than 100 short novels and essays in newspapers and magazines such as Henan Daily, Nanyang Workers, Henan Education, and Population and Family Planning.