30513 Memories: The Old Haunts

In my mind, I can still picture things like they were when I was much younger than now. Sometimes, when I think about those times, I miss the way it all was then, back in that 30513 zip code. After all, it will always be the place I call home in some way. Time, among other things, brings changes. It just can’t stay the same. Still, the memories linger, hanging on, haunting me in some ways.

Some things I miss are still there but just have a different purpose now. Today the downtown is a bustling series of streets overrun by out-of-towners and those who have relocated who weave their way from business to business looking for overpriced knick-knacks, gourmet coffee, custom beer, antiques they think date back to the reconstruction and for a menu that is still Southern but still somehow politically correct enough for their refined tastes. Yet, when I set foot on those same streets, I recall how my Mom shopped at the department stores in the summer to put my school clothes on lay-a-way for the fall. I remember trying on lace-up work boots to wear to school during the cold winters. I think back to times when I would go with my Dad to the hardware store to help him look for a tool or to locate a belt for the lawnmower. There were times I even went to the grand-looking bank on the corner with my parents. While they conducted business inside, they allowed me to cross the street to the drug store so I could look over the magazines on display there.

Some things I miss are still there but it's just that time has moved on from it or from me. The jewelry store where I bought my high school senior ring sits nestled in the downtown like it has for years. I have only been back there once or twice since then. The movie drive-in is still in business although it often seems crowded over with those who have never experienced the thrill of watching a movie on an enormous outdoor screen. Ironically enough, the movie theater that opened while I was a teenager closed years back. At my age it also doesn't seem like the most logical thing to do would be to drive to Tilley Bend church after midnight to walk the cemetery armed only with a flashlight and courage just to see if any ghostly figures appear.

Some of what I miss is just no longer there any longer. This is the human element of all this. Every small town has its own cast of unique characters. I miss the ones I knew, some whose names I recall and some I can only remember by what they looked like back in that day and time. Of course in a small town, you find most of us are related in some way, through blood or marriage. There are those of that number I miss as well. Some of those I miss have moved elsewhere, some have moved on to their reward. Some of them were family. Some were just like family. I miss the neighbors you could trust with your life. I miss the family members who had your back no matter what. I miss the friends who understood what you were thinking even before you could verbalize it.

When things change, they are replaced with new memories. That is fine. That is how it all works. Still, the old haunts hold a place that can still make me happy from time to time when I run across their memory. Now, when I am back there in this place that can only be described as somewhere between Mayberry and Twin Peaks, and I drive through, I see what exists now, but I also see what once was, a ghost of the place I once knew.

30513 Memories: The Old Haunts Playlist

James Taylor "Our Town"
Warren Zevon "Keep Me In Your Heart"
Steve Earle "Someday"
George Harrison "All Those Years Ago"
Smashing Pumpkins "1979"
Deanna Carter "Strawberry Wine"
Mark Wills "19 Somethin'"
Fleetwood Mac "Landslide"
Bruce Hornsby and the Range "Across The River"
Paul Anka "Times of Your Life"
Darryl Worley "I Miss My Friend"
Rosanne Cash and Bobby Bare "No Memories Hangin' 'Round"
Dream Academy "Life In A Northern Town"
Dire Straits "Telegraph Road"
Simon and Garfunkel "Old Friends"
Gram Parsons "Brass Buttons"
Jim Croce "Photographs and Memories"
Five For Fighting "100 Years"
Jack Johnson "Go On"
Alan Jackson "Small Town Southern Man"
Mary Chapin Carpenter "I Am A Town"
The Allman Brothers Band "Revival"
The White Stripes "We Are Going To Be Friends"
Iris Dement "Our Town"