Life changes. As the days become weeks and weeks become months, I am seeing more and more changes to the physical appearance of the landscape here around my home in the Hufsmith area.

The one-time Christmas tree farm now has homes in it and all up and down every road there are new projects taking place. Sometimes it hurts to see the changes, but then again, changes are what the world is all about. Can you imagine where you would be today if you would have never changed?

Now I know there is somebody out there who is already mumbling under their breath words like “I’m still the same guy I was twenty years ago. I haven’t changed!” Really? If you’re the same guy you were twenty years ago, then are you still acting the same way you did twenty years ago? Are you still wearing the same clothes? Are you still driving the same car? Have you not changed underwear in twenty years? Well, I guess you get my drift.

Things change everyday, but as I said before, sometimes the changes hurt. I guess it’s the idea of seeing so many of my childhood locations being physically altered that hurts me the most. My favorite tree or my favorite hunting spot or fishin' hole all seem to be going by the wayside.

One change has brought a mystery to the community. It began about three or four weeks ago. The underbrush has recently been cleared at the northwest corner of FM 2978 and Hufsmith Road. This property has been a mixture of grass and underbrush for as long as I can remember. As a kid growing up I used to ride and walk up and down Hufsmith Road well before FM 2978 was ever built and in my mind this land has always been vacant.

As the heavy equipment moved the brush I soon noticed a concrete slab I had never seen before. It’s been bugging me because normally I’m pretty good about remembering old buildings that used to dot our landscape and for the life of me I could not remember any building at that location, so I started asking around.

Over the past few weeks I have talked to old timers and young persons, male and female, and people from all walks of life who may have ever had any reason to travel the roads of Hufsmith. I have asked people who have lived here seventy and eighty years ago and none of them can ever remember a building being at that location. So today I carried my investigation a step further.

I contacted the person who was involved with the property and asked his permission to enter and inspect the slab for any potential markings. He told me he too was surprised about finding the slab because he had even mowed the pasture several times and had been mowing right across the top of it without any knowledge of the concrete being below his tractor.

With shovel and broom in hand I started removing the piles of dirt that had been strewn across the slab during the clearing process and then I started sweeping the edges. Common sense told me that if anybody had possibly written anything on the slab they would have printed it on the edges. I swept three corners with no luck, but as I started sweeping the last corner the imprint of a bare foot began to appear. Then the first two letters of a name seemed somewhat clear and they are PE…The rest of the name is too distorted, so I got some dirt and sprinkled it across the name and dusted it off to no avail.

I then got some red chalk out of my truck from my chalk box and tried highlighting it again, but still nothing. Then it started sprinkling rain so I had to abandon my archeological studies. 

The building seems bigger than a two car garage and I know it was built before the pre-plastic days because it has a lead pipe commode flange and a cast iron vent pipe in the slab. Once the weather clears I’m going back for round two.  

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