Can’t Go Back…
It wafts across my consciousness like an ancient dream, but it was very real and just a few decades removed. It now seems a world away, but it’s only a couple of hours drive. Going there now is to travel back in time, to the formative years of my youth and my coming of age. So much of it remains untouched by the passing of years. Yet it is in enough ways different that it is no longer home.
We did not appreciate it then, but growing up in the ’50s in Huntingdon was about as close to ideal as anyone could hope for. It was small town USA with a tree-lined Main Street, where everybody knew everybody, where house and car doors were left unlocked with never a problem reported. People had values. The school, along with several Christian based churches, provided the social hubs for most of the population. People worked hard but enjoyed life and took a day off on Sunday. Most merchants also closed shop on Wednesday afternoons, a practice that now seems odd. I never knew or thought about why — that was just part of the natural order of things.
The population then was around 3,500 but we liked to call it 5,000 because that sounded so much larger. The Court House, situated on a knoll where Highway 70 intersects Highway 22, remains as it was then, a permanent sentinel keeping watch over the town, and an effective speed-bump in the center of town. Thru traffic and townsfolk alike had to literally drive around the Court House to get through town. U.S. Highway 70 was the main East-West route across the state, so there was a lot of Memphis to Nashville traffic, including 18-wheelers, that cursed and smoked and spit their way around Court Square. The Interstate Highway System was just getting underway, would be years in the making, and would miss Huntingdon by about 20 miles. The bypass, similar to the ones that would encircle every small town eventually, had not yet been thought of.
On a recent visit with my remaining family there, I discovered that a traffic light had been installed where the bypass intersects Highway 70 on the west side of town. This is not a flashing yellow caution light, or a flashing red stop then proceed with caution light, but a full-fledged light with green, yellow, and red lights that work on a timing mechanism. Prior to this, Huntingdon proudly claimed to be the largest town in the country without a stop light.
In the 1950s, all commerce in town was huddled around Court Square or within a couple of short blocks on the spokes coming into the Square. The only bank in town, a couple of general stores, or department stores as they preferred to be called, one jewelry store, a florist, two insurance agencies, a grocery store, the obligatory cab stand — pool hall combination, and three car dealers, one to represent each of the great American automobile manufacturers. And, of course, the churches — one each of Baptist, Church of Christ, Methodist, and Presbyterian, all within shouting distance of the Court Square.
In the ’70s and ’80s, as the town grew, new strip shopping centers opened on the east side of town, right along East Main, or Highway 70. When the mecca of Walmart was established, smaller merchants sprang up around it, as if to suckle the rich flow that would follow. Downtown began to wither. Stores changed hands. The jewelry store became a card shop, the Post Office became offices when the new one was built out on the edge of town. Even the doctors’ offices moved out to stand sentry around the new hospital. Some of the churches moved to the ourskirts of town and erected new buildings. Like so many other little towns across the country, especially the ones missed by the interstate highways, downtown Huntingdon was changing. It was beginning to die.
There were enough stubborn merchants that held on, determined to not let the town wither into obilivion, as had happened with others around it. Stores came and went, sometimes coming back again. The couple of cafes in town changed ownership, changed names, moved to a different building, changed menus, and somehow managed to survive. Some of the small mom and pop shops were able to retain enough of their loyal clientele to withstand the merciless marketing onslaught of Walmart. Bob’s Dairy Bar out on the edge of town had disappeared after Bob died at a too early age, and was eventually replaced by the usual assortment of McDonalds, Hardees, and Wendys. The local bank was swallowed up in the bank merger mania that started in the ’80s, but the main local office continued to anchor the same downtown corner on Court Square.
The aluminum foil plant that had arrived in the late ’60s continued to grow and provide stable employment and a strong economic base for the town. As the population grew and the bypass was completed, Walmart moved from their original location to a huge new Walmart SuperCenter across town. After the bumpy turn of the century, an old department store that anchored the Court Square across the street from the bank was taken over and rebuilt as The Dixie, a first class performing arts center for the region. The name derives from Huntingdon’s claim to fame, Dixie Carter, who grew up in Huntingdon as I did. As a senior, Dixie played first chair trumpet in the school band, while I sat as a shy freshman in the clarinet section, sucking on my reed, slobbering on the stage floor, and peeking over my sheet music at Dixie. She went on to entertainment fame as Julia Sugarbaker of Designing Women. I went on to post stuff that nobody cares about in this blog.
Daddy died in early ‘95 and Mom is in a nursing home only a few blocks from where her house, now someone else’s, sits. Most of their contemporaries are either gone or in nursing homes. My brother and family are still there — never left. He retired from the aluminum plant a year ago and his wife just hung up the teaching tools after a long career. Some of my old school mates are still around, all looking much older/fatter/balder/grayer than I do, of course. We’re having a class reunion this fall and it will be interesting to hook up with some that I have not seen or thought about in 30 or 40 years. Going back now is a bitter-sweet experience. Of course I visit with Mom at the nursing home, go by Daddy’s grave and say howdy, visit with my baby bro, and occasionally see someone who I recognize or who remembers me. Driving around town always impresses me with how little the town has changed, while reminding me how very much it has changed. I leave and head out Highway 22 toward the interstate, realizing once again that I can’t go back.
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As much as I enjoyed Designing Women (that was a looong time ago, wasn’t it the 80’s?), I’ve definitely enjoyed reading “stuff that nobody cares about in this blog” far more. I can only imagine what you’ll have to post in the fall after the reunion! You can go back sometimes.
I grew up in a time like that also with a small town that although it was 7 miles away provided a lot of those experiences. It changed totally with its proximity to Portland and now is barely recognizable. At least I have it in my memory. We moved to a place in the country to raise our kids and the small town they experienced in the 70s and 80s was a lot like mine had been– other than 20 miles away. It is still there but hasn’t done well as the little business have faltered. Gasoline prices being high might help such little towns when people find a need to shop locally once again.
It would be an interesting article to speculate on what memories our teenagers of today will have of their urban/suburban formative years. Even those living in smaller towns are infinitely more mobile than our generation, more exposed to information from television, computers, internet, mobile phones and other technology.
Beautiful. Thanks.
Going back to your old hometown is bittersweet isn’t it? So many things rush back at you…but you still have so many connections there…your brother, your mother….and your class reunion coming up in the fall. I can only imagine what you’ll have to say after that. It’s definitely strange Winston, but once in a while…you can go back; but it depends on what you’re exactly looking to go back to.
This is beautiful and sad.
Sometimes, I wish I’d never left.
[...] Can’t Go Back… Like so many other little towns across the country, especially the ones missed by the interstate highways, downtown Huntingdon was changing. It was beginning to die. There were enough stubborn merchants that held on, determined to not … [...]
Excellent post.
Beautiful post. I grew up in a town much like that. After having been gone for 20 years, I could still cash my mother’s check at the local bank at the drive-up window because I was in band in high school with Debbie, the teller.
Keep posting all that “stuff that people don’t care about.” It means more to us than you can know.
Lovely post, and I care about your “stuff”! Reminded me I spent early years in a small town, though larger than the one you mentioned. Left there in the sixth grade, but powerful memories continue. A year and a half ago, I visited there and some other locales — took pictures and generally remembered so much…..
The highest reward a writer or story teller can receive is the warm applause of his/her audience. I am honored and humbled by your kind words and feel validated once again. It is amazing how many readers share a similar background of Main Street, U.S.A., where we absorbed the basic small town values that mold us and stay with us through the years to help us do life, wherever we roam.
My heartfelt thanks to all of you, especially those who have ventured by here for the first time. Hope to see y’all back here again soon and often. My tag line is, there’s always something different, sometimes interesting, not too often boring.
Winston, I agree with Joy. Going back is bittersweet and it depends on what you are going back to. Six years ago a highschool boyfriend gave me a call and we began a second chance for happiness. With that call came new fresh relatioships with family and friends. We discovered our families had known each other for at least 150 years. Hours have been spent around the dinner table filling in gaps, laughing, and hearing new stories about both families. Incredible! Yes, the town is different, but visions from the past return to my mind’s eye and I’m smiling! Thanks again Winston.
The town where I lived the longest as a kid was a large one in Western Massachusetts. By the time I arrived there in 1967, it had begun to change and “downtown” was not the traditonal one you describe in your post.
As a little kid, it was okay. Safe enough, clean and orderly.
By the time I was 16, I knew that I would leave and never want to go back. I have little nostalgia for it, including my large suburban high school. I’m of the Dazed and Confused generation: having been 16 in the mid-70s. My high school was a hotbed of drugs, booze and cigarettes. Right inside the building, I mean. Not that I didn’t do my share of partying, but the social climate that went along with it was and will be my cup of tea.
I’ve gone back only a few times because I absolutely had to.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed your post very much. I’m glad you had the benefit of such a nostolgic childhood.
Peace,
Pagan
I meant “wasn’t and will never be my cup of tea.” sorry for the error.
The hell you can’t go back, son. If it means something to you, then you never left. You’ll carry pieces of that place wherever you go. And those of us that are inclined will endeavor to continue the memories with the new faces that surround us. I get teased endlessly about being from “Mayberry” only because the shallow fucks doing the teasing what more than anything what I have. And that’s tangible memories of times and places that seem too peaceful and simple to even have existed in this modern world.
Cling to your memories with all you are worth, boy. It’s what makes you, you.
Winston,
I’m so glad that I came across your blog after somehow losing the link so long ago. And what a perfectly written post to come back to!
Growing up in Franklin in the 70s and 80s, my experience wasn’t quite the same, but I have family in Hartsville and Gallatin and was able to easily picture those small towns and their squares as I read your beautiful memories.
Thanks so much for what you share.
Mike
No. It hasn’t changed and then again it has.
This was incredible. Small towns change and then don’t.
A mystery there is no answer to.
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Happy journey, Charles. I hope your home-going was a wonderful one. God bless.
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