If I could go back… back to my childhood days… way back to the days when ‘a drug problem’ at school’ meant that the office was out of aspirin… I’d go back! You’d better believe I would! Things were truly different back then. No, we didn’t have Covid, but we did have mumps, measles, chicken pox, and polio. We didn’t have TV, but we did have AM radio that brought Amos and Andy, Fibber Magee and Molly, and Guy Lumbardo into our homes. We didn’t have cell phones that rang during church… but we had telephones with long cords and a favorite place to curl up and whisper sweet nothing to that favorite someone across town. We didn’t have TV to keep up us half the night… or the internet to rob us of valuable family time. But we did have those amazing places called libraries that carried countless books on countless subjects that gave us countless hours of pleasure while reading. Hardly anything was ‘right at our fingertips’ back then, which made possessing anything – mean that we had to put out some effort to possess it. This only made things much more dear to us. And as one of the most popular songs of the day stated, ‘little things meant a lot.’
Looking back, I remember those simple pleasures, those special treats that we found while outside discovering the world around us. You see, our world was the real world, and not some animated imaginary world on a small flat screen manupilated by our fingers. A good example was: About every six weeks or so, the city sent to our neighborhood a great yellow monster!
The street on which I lived was two blocks north of Battlefield Park. It ran east and west. Connecting our street to Battlefield was Peabody Street, running north/south. In the 40s, Peabody had yet to be paved… it was still gravel.* Periodically, the city would send out this great yellow monster, a road grader, to smooth out the ruts and bumps of Peabody Street. And the neighborhood kids lined the path to watch this great machine at work! Oh what a treat that was! The one in the photo is only a toy-model. But it still brought a smile to my face!
I’ve always had a deep fondness for airplanes. Perhaps that’s because our home on Evergreen lay directly below the landing approach to one of the main runways of Hawkins Field, Jackson’s original airport. Those old Delta and Southern DC-3 lumbering directly overhead never got boaring to this young boy!
Back then, a dollar would buy far more than it does today. In the late 40s, a fully dressed hamburger was only a quarter… and it came with condiments on BOTH buns (something you never find today) plus lettuce, pickle, tomato and onions. A soft drink was 5c. When I began driving, and dating… I had $5.00 set aside for my week’s spending. I could take that $5, put gas in Dad’s car, buy the date and myself burgers and drinks, tickets to the movie, and still have money left over for snacks for myself the remainder of the week!
In 1945, the southern city limits of Jackson was only yards south of US Hwy 80! And I had a cousin who also lived on Evergreen, who walked south on Peabody, crossed Battlefield Park, then crossed over Hwy 80… to squirrel hunt! Yes, I helped eat many a squirrel that was bagged just south of Hwy 80… when that area was mostly forrest and fields.
Not long ago I found an eye-opening bit of local history which underscored just how old I really am. It was an old highway map of Mississippi, dated less than 10 years before my birth. It showed that both Highway 80 (East and West) and Highway 51 (North and South) were only PAVED just a few miles outside of Jackson! Can you imagine traveling to Memphis on a gravel road? How about on a MUDDY gravel road?
Yes, I know, times have changed. And they keep on changing… especially in my lifetime. But, times have also changed during my parents lifetime, and durning their parent’s lifetime! Not long ago I saw a list of average salaries of profession people at the turn of the century (1900). It stated that railroad engineers then made more that medical doctors! Yes, times have changed! It makes me wonder what it will be like when my great-grand children are adults. I don’t think I want to know!
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Pen In Hand 