Thursday, February 15, 2007 Older Editions

The Back Page: Andover and other great hometowns - What was yours?

By Bill Dalton

Folks who haven't lived long in town tell me they enjoy the stories about Andover. They're reminded of their own hometowns.

I received a beautifully descriptive e-mail from Jeanne Walker Bourland. She and her family have lived in Andover for eight years, the last two on High Street. Jeanne grew up in Laurel, Miss. in the 1960s and '70s. In those days, Laurel was the same size as Andover in the 1940s and '50s, when I grew up.

Ms. Bourland says, "Your stories of Andover's past really bring the people, and the town, to life for me; I truly enjoy reading your column. My husband teases me that I have a secret rendezvous each week with a man I have never met and who is, I believe, old enough to be my father." Well ... ahem, that last part is true.

Andover was a great hometown, but there are thousands of great hometowns.

Ms. Bourland says, "Your Andover is much like my Laurel. I walked or rode my bike over a mile to elementary school and my mother never had to worry about someone coming along to swipe me ... something mothers nowadays fear. In third grade I walked several blocks to my first elementary school. No worries. My friend Martie Allen and I walked along the old abandoned lumber railroad tracks to the grocery store - a short cut bypassing the street route which took twice as long, and no thought was given to the possibility that something would happen to us."

This element of safety is critical to being "carefree." If you don't feel safe, how can you feel free? If parents worry constantly about a child's safety, the child senses the worry.

Jeanne says, "In Laurel, everyone knew everybody. There was always a parent or two who would look out their window to catch a glimpse of us, keeping an eye on everyone as we played around the neighborhood. Our town was spread out, so often we lived clear across town - several miles - from our friends, yet most of the time we managed to get ourselves to each other's houses. Our parents knew all of our friends pretty well, and my mother, while she was not a close personal friend of all the mothers of my friends, certainly knew them far better than I know most of the parents of my children's friends. As parents now, we exist in a culture of fear and nervousness, and that leads, I think in part, to ferrying our children back and forth to school, to and from their friends' houses, and to and from a long list of after-school activities."

Ms. Bourland makes a valid point about the safety issue and adds: "The traffic was such my mother needn't worry I would get mowed down crossing the street, whereas I feel my 10-year-old cannot cross the street at the Memorial Library traffic light because it is so questionable. Even when the light is red across Main Street and cars can turn right on red, it is a trick getting across...and that is with the 'help' of the crossing signals! Everyone is in such a dang fired hurry to get wherever it is they need to go."

I agree, and add that fast, odious drivers are a problem in town. When I grew up, there were no lights in Elm Square. At busy times, a police officer, often "Jocko" Deyermond, a colorful, well-liked cop, would direct traffic from the center of the square. He stood in a slightly elevated, one-man structure that looked like a large can of cola with its top cut off. As we biked or slowly drove by, we'd say, 'Hi,' to him. When the traffic lights were added, a structure the size of a big storage shed with lots of windows sat at the V between Elm and Main streets. There, a police officer could manually operate the lights, allowing pedestrians to cross safely. Today, an objective observer would say that Elm Square is quite awful, especially for pedestrians.

Jeanne has a colorful description of weekends in Laurel: "As a child my friends and I walked or rode bikes everywhere...to one of the churches after school for piano lessons or choir practice or downtown on weekends to grab a bite to eat at the D.Q. All sports for the older kids were school-sponsored, not town-sponsored, so team practices from junior high through high school were directly after school on the school athletic fields.

"We had dances every Friday night after the home football games, and everyone attended. Saturdays, most of the teenagers, no matter how much money their parents had, had jobs - or chores to do for their family - so there wasn't a whole lot of milling around. Saturday nights were for going to the local movie theater or Fat Daddy's, our underage hangout where we danced, ate pizza and played foosball. On Sunday afternoons the boys gathered at the Gibbes' house across from the high school, or at the North Laurel branch of the town bank - clear across town - to play pick-up football, and the girls gathered at the top of the lawn to gossip and enjoy the view.

"The worst pranks consisted of toilet papering peoples' yards - and often we were made to go back the next day to help clean it up - or climbing to the top of the town water tower, located at the high school, to spray paint 'Jeff loves Susie' or 'Go Tornadoes, Beat the Panthers!' before the homecoming game."

Winters in the Deep South and Southwest, where currently I live, rarely have snow. However, we had an ice storm in Austin last month. It closed the city for three days. The local kids loved it. They skated on the streets, played hockey and sledded. I wondered where they got the equipment. A friend said that a lot of kids use indoor ice rinks. Well, I said, that explains the skates but what about the sleds? My friend said they'd a three-inch snowstorm four years ago, and the kids had bought the sleds at Wal-Mart. (That company watches weather forecasts and moves inventory into an area overnight.) My friend said, "The kids have been saving those sleds ever since, waitin' for another opportunity."

Ms. Bourland describes what happened in Laurel, "When we got snow - all of maybe half a dozen times I can remember - school would be canceled and everyone would meet up around 10 a.m. to spend most of the day sledding down the hill to the front steps of Memorial Chapel. The kids who lived in that part of town would invite the rest of us over for hot chocolate and a good warming up by the fireplace. There was a Tammy's where we could walk to grab a burger. Once we had such a bad ice storm after a snowfall, the town shut down for a few days. Many areas lost power, and the town was a wintry, icy wonderland ... sort of like the scene from Dr. Zhivago where he and Lara go out to the summer retreat, all iced over by the cruel Russian winter. That was one long sledding fest!"

It would be fun to hear from readers about other hometowns, especially comparing them to what you know about Andover.

Columnist Bill Dalton's new e-mail address is billdalton@andovertownie.com. His old email address still works.