One of the great endearing things about TAGS is that we can return to Mayberry any time we want and find that nothing has changed. The same people are there and they have not aged, the same buildings are there, and life continues on unchanged forever.
Two weeks ago I returned to my very small home town to take part in their annual parade. It really was a bittersweet day for me. While I loved being in the parade and seeing a lot of folks that I knew, it was very sad for me as I drove around town trying to rekindle some of young days. When i drove down Main Street all three grocery stores were gone as was the drug store, hardware store, and most of the other buildings. All three car dealerships have long since disappeared. My old high school has been torn down, the grade school I attended is now a nursing home, and the Catholic School has also been shut down. The mill pond where we use to fish in the summer and skate on in the winter has been filled in and is now covered by a mill work plant. Even the familiar water tower that we all climbed has been dismantled. About the only thing from my days of youth that still remains is the bowling alley and gymnasium. It felt so good to visit it and eat a dinner in the same room where I once ate my school lunches and where I learned to dance so many years ago. Most of the people I met that I had grown up with were gone, and the few I did meet were difficult to recognize as the fifty years have taken their toll upon them too. It was when I took a stroll through the town cemetery that the nostalgia really took its grasp upon me. I walked among the names of former classmates, teachers, relatives, teachers, and neighbors, all of whom were such an important part of my life so many years ago. When I got back "home" to where we now live I took out my TAGS DVD's and I revisited that wonderful place we call Mayberry. And there it was. Unchanged. All the people we have come to know and love were still there, as were all those wonderful places that we so readily can recognize. So thank you Mayberry, for allowing me to revisit a wonderful time and place. -- Ken Anderson The Mayberry Guru 2906 May Street Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701 www.themayberryguru.com www.mayberryreflections.com _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list [email protected] http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
