Time has a way of changing everything...

I wish sometimes that things could be like they were when I was growing up.  I drive through my hometown and see all the changes and it almost breaks my heart.  The bank is now an insurance office, the main shopping store is now a discount furniture store with tacky furniture in the window.  The old drugstore is now the newspaper office.  The dress shop is bricked up and has a red front door (maybe a private residence?)  The theatre is shut down, the hotel is closed and the dining room out of business as well.  My grade school looks great because it is used as an Early Start and programs for parents.  The restaurant where I used to go for lunch while I was in grade school is gone and there is a carpet store there now.  About all that looks the same are the churches and even one or two of them have added buildings and made changes that just don't seem to fit.  They've built a Dollar General Store right in the middle of a strip of older homes not too far from our house and the new fire department building is built on the corner of our lane.  There is a park there too and I'll admit both are great assets.  My middle/high school is now the county middle school.  The new high school combined all of the county schools and is as big as some high schools in Lexington - in other words, too big.

When Wal-Mart moved in, it killed the businesses around the court house square.  It will never be the same.  Even is we got rid of Wal-Mart - which is impossible, the town wouldn't have the same feel.  Businesses could relocate back to the square but the feeling wouldn't be the same.  Someone told me the theatre was going to be reopened but it's been a year and nothing has happened.  I miss the old town, I miss the people and the slower way of living - Thursday at noon every business closed down for the afternoon.  You won't find that type of feeling anywhere around here any time soon, if ever.  I miss the fact that I knew almost everyone and that if I didn't know them, my parents or grandparents did.  I miss sitting in church with my parents and grandparents.  I miss hearing Grandad begin to snore and his "wap, wap, wap" when Grandma would poke him in the ribs with her elbow.  I miss sitting on the back row of church because I was deemed mature enough to sit there and behave.  I miss singing out of the hymnals and having Mrs. Stikeleather at the organ and Mrs. Day on the piano.  I even miss playing the piano for the Sunday evening worship service.  I miss MYF meetings with my friends.  I miss swimming in Allen's Lake - where we learned to swim and took lessons every summer for years.  I miss parties at my house when we would divide up the list (always increasing) and calling everyone to come, bring either a drink or a snack, and dance the night away.  I miss our school Jazz Band (mostly boys from my class) who were always ready and willing to set up and play all evening as well.  I loved that my parents would chaperon and that if there was any problem, Daddy would take care of it quietly and efficiently. (Like the night some boys showed up with six-packs of beer - Daddy told them they were welcome but their beer wasn't.)

Small towns have a lot to offer and also some things I'm glad to avoid.  I guess.  Back then, if you got into trouble, the person knew your parents and told on you immediately.  It kept a lot of us from ever getting into trouble so that really was a good thing.  Our school teachers were also our Sunday school teachers and more often than not that kept us in line as well.  I really wanted to leave, I wanted to see the big city and live the big city life.  Now I wonder why.   I certainly don't want to move back there, but I wish some of that small town life could have survived.  I'm sorry my children didn't get to do some of the things I did but they got to do a lot I never got to do so I guess it sort of evens out in the long run.