One afternoon, I stood at the edge of that long stretch of gravel, waiting for my daughter Anne to come home from school. Her bus usually pulls up right where our driveway meets the highway. But today, something was different.
A bulldozer was parked across the entrance. Another machine—something with claws and a personality—was rumbling nearby. The entire convoy of construction vehicles was working right in front of our driveway, as if the road had decided to annex our farm.
I waved at the bulldozer driver. He waved back. We smiled. Then we stared at each other like two people trying to play charades with no shared language. He didn’t speak English. I don’t speak Spanish. But somehow, through gestures, urgency, and maternal telepathy, he understood: “My child is coming. Please don’t flatten her path.”
He stopped the machine.
Then another worker arrived—on a different piece of equipment, naturally—and translated. They paused the entire convoy. For fifteen full minutes, the machines idled. The dust settled. The road held its breath.
And then, like a scene from a surreal farm fairytale, Anne’s bus pulled in. She stepped off with the grace of someone completely unfazed by industrial chaos. Backpack bouncing, hair flying, she waved at the workers. They waved back. I laughed. They laughed. The bulldozer rumbled back to life.
