Small Town USA

I recently took a trip home to visit my father in the hospital. While I was there I took the scenic drive out Hwy 45 to my grandparents home. Traveling through the "S" curves and 90 degree turns between Bloomington and Unionville my mind began to wander to my childhood and the little town of my youth. As I reminisced further I began to see such value in a place like Unionville. I drove down Bethel lane where the trees arc high over the road and join each other above the oncoming traffic like a covered bridge. In autumn when these change colors the reds, yellows, and oranges are amazing. I turned left on 45 and immediately on my right is Lakeside IGA. It is the quintessential little country store. The owner, Phil Fisher, and Elden the guy in the meat market all my life, both make excellent lunch meat sandwiches, everybody should have a cold cut sandwich from Lakeside. I passed houses where I knew the families, Fishers, Mobleys, Chitwoods, Smiths, Frileys, Richardsons, Moores, Fleeners,Durnals, and many more. I realized we all knew each other - our hardships were shared, our sorrow, or triumph. We were a community where values and Faith mattered.
I passed the Danny Smith memorial park where some of the greatest evenings of my life were spent. Baseball games, free snow cones if you retrieved a foul ball, 202 to center - that was every boy sluggers favorite place. I even bounced a ball off the concession stand roof in my final little league game. The may pole, the horse shoe pits, and the shelter house all played big parts in all of us Unionvillers small town lives. We played, laughed, and cried but we did it together.
If you continue on past my grandparents place you will pass Tunnel Road, it has a real tunnel under it that is a great place to spend time as an adolescent boy, unless there is a bum living in the little alcove then it gets a little scary. Trust me I know! You continue past Brenda Mullis' beauty parlor, which might really be her garage, where my mom got her hair done for her work banquets. On we go to Lynn Stephens barber shop, probably one of my favorite places on earth. You can go get a glass bottle of Coke and sit and talk with Lynn and the UPS guy, who is strangely always around, about life, politics, and basketball. Then you can talk about basketball, and after that did I mention we could talk a little while about basketball. In the middle of it all you can get a great haircut from an even better guy. Next door the fire station and the basketball goal where I spent about a quarter of my childhood,back in the day if you were lucky Lynn may bring his high school hall of fame game outside and beat you badly. Later in life, when I was 17 I beat him one on one and I realized I had arrived into adulthood a year early. It was one of the best days of my life. Years later some grumpy old woman in town office had the goal removed and a little part of me went with it. I cried that day, as a full grown, out of shape adult I realized that the next generation would miss out on what I had experienced.
When I arrived at my grandparents home I was greeted by a manicured lawn, beautiful flower beds and the houses on property all built by my grandfather. My grandma was quilting, my uncle and grandfather were studying a 100 year old tool deciding how it would best be used or sold. While I'm there I'm not Pastor Robertson or the Operations Manager @ VRI I am just one of the family. My grandma fixed me dinner and my grandfather and I discussed politics, family history and believe it or not basketball. They aren't famous or rich, but the people that know Max Leroy and Phyllis Gene Robertson are lucky indeed. My grandpa can fix anything, build anything, and knows just about everything there might be to know. If I turn out half the man he is my family will be lucky indeed. My grandmother is all a boy could ask for as a teacher, cook, disciplinarian, nurturer and friend. I spent so much time with her as a boy I attribute a lot of who I have turned out to be to her care. Oh, by the way she knows even more than my grandpa just ask her. They are wonderful people and I have been blessed to know them.
As I flew back to the city where it is all concrete and steel, where there aren't many small town grocers or barbers left, and community means so little I realize Unionville will always be a big part of who I am.
Small town America and the lessons it teaches ought to be known to all. In our town we knew and needed one another. When someone was sick people cared for and helped meet the needs. When folks died, we grieved and helped the grieving. When people rejoiced we joined right in with the celebration. Faith was important, not necessarily where you went to church or exactly what you believed but that we were governed by our beliefs and faith. People left their doors unlocked and their welcome mats out. Eventually Lakeside IGA will close down in favor of another Wal-Mart, and my son gets his hair cut at Supercuts instead of at Lynn's. Max and Phyllis ,or mamaw and papaw as I call 'em, will eventually pass from the scene but never be replaced. When that happens we will truly be the losers. The mold has been broken, not just for these types of small town heros but for that way of life.
Now I'm back home and the kids are on the Internet playing Webkinz, I have a Wiccan priest that lives down the street and 14 meth labs in our neighborhood. We are worried about getting to the Apple store and the Coach store ( Apple for me, Coach for my wife) and carrying on the regular hustle and bustle of our busy lives. All the while I wish I could shuttle back in time for one more game of round ball at the fire station with my buddies (even if we are infected with TRS) and drive the winding road of old Hwy 45. I wouldn't trade my wife and kids for anything in the world, but what I wouldn't trade to take 'em all back, away from the internet, away from the meth labs, and from the Wiccan priest and into a small town I call home.RLR