HOME TOWN MEMORIES

                                     

HOME TOWN MEMORIES      (Written several years ago)

It has been said many ways. “You can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” Or “A man may leave his hometown but his hometown will never leave him.”

No matter how it is said it is true for me. I loved growing up in a small town. I will always carry memories of Hiawatha with me wherever I go. Pine Springs, Star Point, Hamburger Flat, The Cedars, Stringtown, Flat Town are some of those memories. They will not mean much to other people but to someone from Hiawatha they all have special meanings.

I have traveled all over the world but there will always be a small part of me that longs to be back in Hiawatha. Of course I mean the Hiawatha as I remember it.

There is another saying, “You can never go back to your Hometown.” For years I did not really understand what that meant, but after visiting Hiawatha recently, I now understand. It is nothing like I remember it. Yes, some things are still there. The Amusement Hall, The Statue of the World War I soldier in the middle of town, the Post Office and the Mine Office are all there. But it has changed. It is not alive. It does not challenge me. It is small and decaying, but even so, many times I still daydream of the good old days, in my old hometown---HIAWATHA.

I have walked the streets of London, eaten in the side walk cafes of Paris, swam in the blue Mediterranean Sea, spent evenings and nights in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but when sitting in a soft chair, in a quiet room, my thoughts usually go back to some memory of my Hometown, not to the big cities of the world.

Hiawatha, I am sure, was not unlike many small towns across the country. It was not just a town, it was way of life and it was not so bad. However I feel it was a way of life that is fast disappearing. Small towns were people, taking care of people.

In Hiawatha if you were out of town, and your lawn needed cutting, your neighbor did it. He did not ask if it was OK. He went and did it. If you were gone overnight and your furnace (or stove) needed looking after, he went and did it. In Hiawatha our doors were never locked and nothing was ever taken, anyway anything, that I can recall.

If you went uptown for the mail and there was mail for your neighbor, you got it and took it home to him. If you were going to the store you stopped by and asked if your neighbor needed anything?

You traded, back and forth, baked bread, and freshly bottled fruit, jam and homemade cookies, not because you felt obligated to do so, but because you wanted to. I remember several girls my Sisters age even traded off clothes for a few days so they could wear a different skit, sweater or shoes each day. As I have said, “to live in a small town was a special way of life.”   

Hiawatha was unique in many ways. It was a “Coal Camp.” And as far as most of the kids were concerned there were no upper class or lower class. We were all the same. In fact, I guess you could say we were poor and didn’t know it. The majority of the kids lived the same life style. We never went hungry; we wore about the same type of clothes. So actually we were quite well off.

Kids were close in my younger years. Not just one boy and his girl, but gangs of kids, all out having a good time together. We ran and played in bunches, and I was fortunate  that because of my Mom, the Baldwin home seemed to be one of the gathering places for a lot of kids in town, for those bunches of kids. Mom made cookies or sandwiches and fed lunch to anyone who was at our home at lunchtime. Even after I left home and went in the Air Force some of my friends kept going to our home to visit, to have a piece of cake or pie, or a cup of coffee, or just to “shoot the bull” for a few minutes.

Well this is just a few memories about life in a small town in the 1940’s and 50’s which, was about 50 years ago, but still lives vividly in my memory.