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I often awoke in the hottest of summer mornings in my Grandparents’ home to the sound of the clanging of hammer against anvil in Mr. Bew’s Blacksmith shop across the street. His day was beginning, as he and the horse waiting to be shod, were surrounded by heat that even the Chestnut Tree shading them couldn’t lessen. Down the street, my grandaddy was opening his store on the corner and old men had begun gathering under the tree in front of it to exchange news and pleasantries. It was a town delightfully unlike the busy city I lived in most of the year.
The Schoolyard on the corner seemed to continually be the source of laughter, shouts of “You’re It” and the din of the voices of children released for just a while from more serious pursuits.
It was a town of friendly adults – Mrs. Bruce the postmistress, Mr. Turlington the butcher on the corner, Mr. Adams, whose two story hardware store offered counter after counter of items that a young shopper found fascinating, but knew to not touch, the soda jerk who worked at the White Stone Drug Store, where there were the latest comic books and the best rainbow sherbet ice cream cones known to a kid.
It was a town where the old and the changing made room for one another. The several stores which had stood for decades along the main street started either moving to other locations or their owners retired.
