OUR TOWN

Our Town

It's here I met my first love and had my first kiss.

I've walked down Main Street in the cold morning mist.

Over there is where I bought my first car

It turned over once, but it didn't go far.

Now I sit on the porch and watch the lightning-bugs fly.
But I can't see too good, I got tears in my eyes.

I'm leaving tomorrow but I don't wanna go!

I love, my town, you'll always live in my soul.

---Iris Dement

I love my hometown, and the friends I grew up with are so precious to me. Even the ones I have not seen for years, I know when I greet them, it will be as though we never parted. We'll take up where we left off. And many of my friends there I have kept in close touch. My best friend and I talk almost very single day, even if it's just a brief "how are you?"

Every time I leave my town after a visit, I feel sad and I cry. It is not because I do not want to return to California, because I adore my life here . . . it's simply because my hometown holds memories of a childhood filled with happiness. You have a history with the people you grew up with. There is a certain security that no matter what you do or what happens in your life, they will still love you and welcome you home with open arms, back into the fold. They know all your secrets and all your flaws, and yet they still love you. There is a familiarity . . . You know who lives in every house on the streets; their joys and sorrows. And the memories . . . my first day of school, my first kiss, my first love, my first heartbreak, the friends, the good times and the bad. Every old song or hymn I hear takes me back in time and evokes a lifetime of memories. Many people do not share this sentiment concerning their childhood, but mine was happy, which is one of the greatest blessings of my life. When life gets tough, my mind takes me there, especially when I feel sentimental.

Today I drink far too many Coca Cola's and eat too many Snicker candy bars, because it brings transports me to Saturday mornings spent with my father at Gay Braden's store. I miss my father, and I miss Gay Braden, and his wife Lessie, who always came out of their house behind the store, to say hello to my sister, Vickie, and me. But not all of the memories are sweet . . . like the summertime I invited all the neighborhood kids to Gay Braden's store and charged their Cokes and candy bars to my father's account. Back then a $48 monthly bill was pretty astronomical! Yikes! Daddy's lecture still rings in my ears. Another happy Saturday memory . . . Daddy took us to White Head's diner at Three Points. We loved spinning on the red leather stools at the counter. I can still taste the barbecue and hear White Head's teasing us.

When I was five years old, I learned to play pool! Seriously! We lived at Transco, and my first best friend and first love was a boy, Clayton Thompson. We played pool together at the company clubhouse. Today his older sister, Robbie, who guided us both through our early childhood is a dear friend. I had a terrible accident when I fell on a dog as we were playing in the yard. Robbie and Clayton rescued me and took me home amidst a shower of blood. Amazingly, I am not afraid of dogs today! Dr. McCrary, my friend Stacy's father, sewed me back together again. Even when I brush my hair today, my head is still tender from the dog's teeth marks and when I touch my ear, I feel cartilage, all chopped up by the dog's sharp teeth.

When I started the first grade, my parents moved to town. It was sad to leave Clayton behind, but we were reunited in Mrs. Quattlebaum's first grade class. Clayton sobbed the first day of school. He still remembers my mother as the angel who rescued him. She scooped him up in her arms and took him home with her. But Clayton broke my heart in the first grade too, calling me a sissy girl. He hadn't noticed the difference until we started the first grade.

My sister Vickie and I had an abundance of friends on Allen Avenue. I met my very best friend, Susan Henry on move-in day. She is still my BFF today, many years later. I miss the plays and concerts Susan, Sudie Bailey, my sister Vickie and I staged at our house. We forced the neighborhood children to attend for a nickel each! Thus began my entrepreneurial career. The junior garden club held in our garage was another favorite weekly activity. We mined for programs in our encyclopedias, and that's where I first learned of the danger of barracuda. Don't ask what those ferocious fish had to do with gardening . . . it was our president Sudie Bailey's program, but I always watched for the fish every time I visited the ocean, even though they were not indigenous to any particular oceans in which I have swum. I will never forget our garden club's motto, which was so good that I sincerely believe it should be included in Bartlett's Book of Quotes---Death to the weeds! Life to the flowers! Pretty profound for a couple of ten-year-olds!

I miss Dot and Doyle Benefield, who went dancing with my parents. We had fun Saturday night visits at their home and loved it when their son Larry brought his dates in to say hello. Dot survived a brain tumor and was with us for unexpected decades afterwards until the fateful day that she refused to relinquish her purse to a teenage burglar in an Auburn antique store. He shot and killed her, breaking so many hearts and condemning him to a life in prison.

I think of my pretty clothes that my mother had Dicie Gosden sew for my sister and me. Memories of going to Dicie's house to be fitted and visiting with her and her husband Blake, still give me a tug at my heart every time I pass their house on my way to Roanoke. Another special memories is the sight of Ruth Bartlett's profuse flower bed across the street from our house on Allen Avenue. But I don't miss the day that I innocently plucked her prize iris for a bouquet for my mother, who was ill. Ruth was unhappy but forgiving. She and her husband Wayne invited us over for popcorn and Cokes the next weekend, a Saturday night ritual we frequently enjoyed. When I think of the bicycles, my sister and I asked Santa for, I feel sad, because we discovered them in the Bartlett's garage, bursting our belief in Santa Claus. Just this year, Maureen Peek, our beloved next door neighbor, died. Maureen was family to me, my godmother, always dispensing advice and wisdom. I saw her most every day I lived on Allen Avenue. Maureen could be tough too, because her standards were high. She forgave me for locking her son Dan and his friend, Johnny Stevenson, in the basement even though we refused to tell anyone where the boys were. No one remembers the reason Susan Henry and I did this dastardly deed, but the boys had tied us to the mimosa tree with nylon cord, dangling us by our hands high above out heads. The little devils! Payback time! I loved the watermelons James, her husband, brought to our backyard barbecues. One of his greatest pleasures was watching my sister Vickie enjoy a sweet slice. I admired his quiet strength. Their sons Jimmy and Dan were our friends and enemies. Did I mention Dan shot me with his BB gun? He was shooting rocks and one ricocheted into my knee . . . an accident of whose scar I still bear.

I miss dinners at the City Cafe, especially their lemon pies. And the hamburger steak at the Ranch Cafe! I really miss the Baptist Church and St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, especially their Christmas Eve service. I miss the old hymns in church and the parade of women's stylish hats on Easter Sunday. I the miss white gloves and veiled hats we wore. I remember our youth choir, especially the time we won. And how could I forget afterwards when my sister Vickie threw up in the backseat of our choir director, Mrs. Hammer's, new car on the way home. I remember my best friend Susan Henry singing a solo of Jesus Savior Pilot Me, an sitting down in the slap dab middle of the song when she missed the high note, bursting into tears. Since that night, every time I hear that song, I giggle. Sudie, our "older" motherly friend escorted Susan out of the church, but her peers, myself included, giggled shamelessly. I miss G.A.'s and its leaders, Miss Mary Morgan and Miss Shila Corley. We learned so much scripture and had so much fun. During a very difficult period of my life, Those scriptures I memorized came back to me giving me strength and hope. Raise up a child in the way they should go!

After school we meandered to town, our destination---City Pharmacy. There we sat at the counter or in booths, sipping cherry Cokes and lemon freezes from the soda fountain. The owners and pharmacists, Mr. Harris and Mr. Neighbors, pretended not to notice that we snuck a peek at the latest issue of the forbidden Photoplay Magazine, even though our mothers would have objected. Probably because we spent our allowances on dozens of comic books . . . Archie, Veronica, Katie Keen, and Richie Rich!

I miss Sunday dinners at my grandparent's house, especially my grandmother's fried chicken and chess pie. All my cousins gathered there. I can still taste the apples from grandfather's trees. He regaled us with wonderful tales, many that frighted us! He made a special treat for us, chocolate milk on ice. The Varsity Drive-in Atlanta made it famous . . . they called it the P.C. I also remember eating tomato sandwiches with tons of mayo and salt and pepper. Plums, both green and ripe from Daddy's trees were the best and loved by all the neighbors! I miss the quail breakfasts at my Huey grandparent's big house on the hill. After they died, their house burned down. Like them, it's gone taking a lot of happy memories with it. I remember playing Chinese checkers there and picking scuppernongs and muscadines from her vineyards. I also recall they always had a glass of Wild Turkey with Coke that they loved to sip and that made my grandmother a subject of gossip in this Southern Baptist town, but she could have cared less . . . it was not against her religion.

I miss all the adventures with my friends in the nearby woods, getting lost and vowing to become a missionary to Africa if God would show us the way home. He did and we didn't. I cringe when I think we lost one of my father's war medals in the woods and the day we tipped the boat in the lake and lost Susan Henry's father Bill's prized tackle box filled with his fishing lures and treasures. it is still on the bottom of the lake somewhere.

I miss the mimosa tree in our front yard. We climbed and swung on its branches, and made treasures with its frilly flowers. And how I miss those summer nights on Allen Avenue, when all of our neighbors brought a dish and Daddy would fire up the grill and turn the crank on the ice cream maker! I had to sit on the top of the ice cream freezer to hold the top down while Daddy made the last few turns to ensure it was frozen solid.

I miss the ice storms when school was cancelled and Mother would cook on her gas stove and bring the food to Bill and Inez Henry's basement where we gathered with our neighbors to stay warm in front of their gas heaters. I can still taste the cherry tarts left over from Sue Bailey's bridge club earlier that week. In her mid eighties today, Sue still plays bridge! I long for bike rides with my best friends under the street lights on Allen Avenue on hot summer nights. Or catching lightening bugs in Mason jars in the backyard that I would light up my room after the lights were out. Buck Bailey loved to fish and he taught us how to dig for worms and clean his prize catches. I impress my husband as I expertly filet a fish today!

Saturday afternoons were spent at the movie theater watching double features, never dreaming I would one day meet and become friends with many of the stars I watched up on the big screen . . . Pat Boone, Debbie Reynolds, Ali McGraw, and Mickey Rooney, among others! I do not miss the nights we sweated under mounds of covers after having watched horror movies. I still cannot look through a pair of binoculars without wincing after watching Horrors of the Black Museum, with Vincent Price. In the opening scene the man who lived in gothic castle high on the hill received a gift, a pair of binoculars. When he put them up to his eyes and turned the dial to focus, two nails plunged into his eyeballs. I lost an entire night's sleep over that scene, as did my friend Susan Henry, with whom I spent the night. When we heard a noise we ran for the guest room and jumped into bed with her grandmother, Mama Fuller, who was visiting.We snuck in the theater for forbidden movies too, A Summer Place and Imitation of Life! For special movies like South Pacific, we traveled to Atlanta and saw them at the fabulous Fox Theater. When Sound of Music was released, I was sick and missed the movie. It would be almost 30+ years later that I finally had the pleasure of seeing the movie for the first time with its director, Robert Wise. He enthralled me with stories about making the film, while I, in turn, entertained him with stories of my town.

Weekends shopping trips in Atlanta are among some of my best memories. We loved to shop downtown Atlanta at Rich's Department Store, where we rode escalators and lunched in the renowned Magnolia Room and ate chicken pot pie with pecan torte cake for dessert! Yum! I can still taste it. At Christmas we rode the pink pig. We stayed at the Henry Grady Hotel in Atlanta for the weekend. We would come home with the latest fashions not just for ourselves, but for our Barbie dolls, as well! And one weekend when the fabulous Rivera Motel opened, we convinced Daddy to stay there. We enjoyed dinner at Aunt Fannie's Cabin and sometimes, steaks at Dale's Cellar. I can purchase Dale's steak marinade at Gelson's Grocery store in California.

One of my best memories are the Beatles. Each of my friends had their favorite. My friend Susan Hodges loved the Beatles more than anyone, and she particularly loved George! he was my favorite too, but my devotion paled in comparison. Our parents took us to see the Beatles at the Atlanta Stadium in Atlanta. We stayed at the Henry Grady Hotel and they put on "Beatle buses." I still have my ticket stub. We loved the Beatle's concert, but we were seated so high up in the stadium they looked like "beetles!" Still it is a history making that memory I will cherish forever. They opened the evening with "She Loves Me," their first big hit and the crowd went berserk.

I miss the library in our town, where I discovered the world of books, traveling the world as the pages unfolded. I have been blessed to travel to many of those places I read and dreamed about, as an adult. People were surprised that this flirty flighty gal was such a studious bookworm, devouring four books a week. I miss Mrs. Annie Awbrey, the librarian who prepared a reading list for me, and guided and encouraged my love of literature, like she did so many of my classmates. We all have fond memories of her. Even though some of my friends poked fun at this passion of mine, I was unashamed. I read Stuart Little and became worried that my mother who was pregnant might birth a mouse and wondered if I would be able love it if she did?

I miss weekly Girl Scout meetings at the Scout hut under the water tank, where each class scrawled their senior saying in red for the whole town to see. Should I dare mention that it was the girls in our class of 1968; not the guys, who climbed and pained the water tank our senior year. I do not miss the Girl Scout camping trips! My ideal camping is still a weekend at the Ritz Carlton!

The week the fair came to town was the most exciting week of the year! They let school out early so we could go. I never managed to get the balls in the holes to win a stuffed animal, but I won a few junky prizes playing pick up ducks! I loved the rides, except when they stopped us at the top of the ferris wheel. The thing my sister Vickie and I always won was the Halloween Carnival contest for best costume. The first year it was the cat costume with the tails that Mother stuffed, and then the next year we won for our witch costumes. Mother made us wigs of gray yarn. I get every ounce of my creativity from her. What we wanted to win at the Halloween Carnival was the cake walk with yummy cakes, but we never won. Our neighbor, Sudie Bailey, won all the cake walks until she was banned from them. Seriously! We bobbed for apples and had our fortunes told by Rosalyn McMurray, dressed as gypsy, but we always knew it was she in the red bandana and big gold hoops that dangled from her ears!

I miss Mother's chocolate pies and banana pudding with mile high meringue for dessert. I miss our maid, who was like a second mother to me. She would make my bed for me, and tell my mother I did it, where I could go out and play! Her cooking I do not miss . . . Mother was a much better cook. I miss her sons who worked in our yard with Daddy every week. Nice boys who grew into exemplary citizens and wonderful men, who have made a difference in our town. Another thing of my youth that I do not miss is segregation, and I'm glad it is in the past. Its injustices always made me terribly sad as a child. I miss the homecoming parades and the Christmas parades in our town. I miss all the pranks our crowd pulled on upperclassmen! I really miss our sorority trips to Panama City and stolen kisses at the amusement park in the haunted house, out of sight of our chaperones. I love the memories of our Girl Scout trips with Mrs. Hodges and Mrs. Neighbors, especially the trip to Juliette Lowe's home in Savannah. Susan Henry and I set her kitchen on fire as we tried to bake benne seed cookies. We drew slips of paper from the jobs we were supposed to perfom . . . what bad luck that the two of us would draw cook! Never one for the kitchen, I along with Lucy Lane became infamous in our home economics class for years to come. We melted the double boiler in which were heating the hot chocolate! Who knew you were supposed to put water in the bottom? "Every girl should take home economics," our teacher, Mrs. LeSeuer told her classes, long after we had graduated. "It has been proven in this very class," she told her students, "That some girls do not even know how to boil water!" Sad but true!

I recall the joy I felt when I returned home from camp in the summertime. The air conditioning and the Hershey Bar pie mother made for me for my welcome home dinner are such pleasant memories. I miss my room that Daddy painted blue, my favorite color! I miss the view of our yard from my bedroom room and Kathy Kirby, the older girl next door, whom I sometimes talked through the windows on the side of the house.

In our early teens, we exchanged our bikes for riding in cars. I miss circling the Dairy Queen in Mrs. Prestige's white Covair, to see which cute guys were out and about, and eating chili cheeseburgers that we all loved. Naturally Kathryn was our favorite mom. She was drive us to out-of-town games and anywhere we want to go.

I miss the City Pool where I learned to swim and flirt with lifeguards. It took me years but I finally mustered up the courage to jump off the high dive. I miss the Pavilion where my friends and I danced the night away listening to our favorite 60's hits from Sitting on the Dock of the Bay to My Girl to Blue Velvet. I miss the Country Club pool and playing golf with all the cute boys! Thank you Daddy for teaching me how to play! I miss my friend who drove away from the Club and never made it home killed on dead man's curve on Airport Road. I miss the slumber parties where we stayed up almost all night with our hair in humongous pink curlers and gossiped about boys,clothes, and experimented with the latest beauty rituals from Seventeen Magazine.

I still remember the first day of school and trying not to cry when my mother left me there. I remember the day I thought she had forgotten to pick me up and feared I would never see her again Her friend, one of my classmates had volunteered to take me home, but had forgotten to tell me when she became engrossed in a conversation with our teacher. first grader's mother pick me up. I still miss my teachers who taught me valuable lessons from books and about life. I miss my high school sorority and what fun we had and also, who much we learned about various subjects in our programs. I really miss Friday night football, cheering for our team and twirling or cheering at the half-time show. The night I remember most is when I asked my boyfriend to make a touchdown for me before the game. My boyfriend played a position that didn't normally make touchdowns . . . I knew it was just for me when he intercepted the ball and made a touchdown! He not only did this once, but twice! I miss basketball games in the gym, where we were once put on probation for cheering too loudly. The referees had mistaken our enthusiasm for heckling.

I am sad for the unfulfilled dreams . . . like my sandbox, where I never reached China, despite my many hours of digging. I miss daydreams in our treehouse in Sudie Bailey's yard. With Daddy and her dad, Buck's help, we installed a dumb waiter so we wouldn't have to climb up and down the tree for our snacks. It is place I spent hours thinking about life, God and my future. I prayed there, because I felt closer to God . . . it was closer to heaven! And I miss sitting in front of my mother's make-up mirror, experimenting. My reflections gave me hope that I could one day be a pretty and glamourous woman. I miss my first high school love and occasionally wondered what life might have been like if we were still together.

There were sad times too. Losing my grandfather, the first person I loved who died, and then two years later my grandmother, and then my young four year old cousin, a victim of childhood cancer. I can still feel the softness of grandmother's cheek and the fragrance of her rose water and glycerin. I miss my friend, Jimmy Pounds, who was killed on Airport Road. I never got to tell him how sorry I was that I refused to get in the car with him that day . . . would that have changed things? Would it have prevented his death or would I have died in the accident too? Another poignant memory was the day Susan Henry and I put away our Barbie dolls. We had finally decided that we were too old to play with dolls in the 8th grade. It wasn't that we didn't want to continue playing with dolls, it was just a foolish pride we had that it was time to grow up. I'll never forget how much we cried as packed them away for the daughters we would have one day. After we put away our dolls, came boys who broke our heart and even more boys whose hearts we broke.

But the saddest day of my teenage life was when we drove away from our home to move to Atlanta when I was 15 . . I can still recall the pain of my last backward glimpse of home; my friends sitting on the curb in front of my house, sobbing as we drove away from a idyllic life filled with memories.

Years later Mother and Daddy moved back from Atlanta to our town, and I was able to visit and go home again! There is truly no place like home! And Thomas Wolf was wrong . . . you can go home again! When we lost Daddy tragically last year, who was waiting for me in front yard when I arrived . . . old friends, who had come out in the middle of the night to grieve with me.