Since the issuance of the previous Miles' Files, I have done some walking around in the neighborhoods of my head and on many streets paved in memories. I am certain that every one of you has your own recollections of the neighborhoods of years past. From the late '50s and early '60s (and from reruns), one can recall Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver walking along the curb on Maple Street with his big brother, Wally. Friends Whitey, Lumpy, and Eddie Haskell were never far away. And can you believe Dennis the Menace turned 50 last week? We can still observe Dennis Mitchell's antics on Elm Street in the comic strips even though his creator, Hank Ketcham, no longer draws him. Dennis and his playmates Joey, Tommy and Margaret just keep hassling Mr. Wilson next door. Forever young, Dennis is suspended in time as a five year old while the rest of us are showing signs of the past fifty years. (A side note: Hank Ketcham is still living, as is his real son, Dennis, after whom the comic strip character was created. However, they have been estranged for many years. I pray we all avoid estrangement from family and friends!)
While Beaver spent his early days on Maple Street (and later Pine Street) in Mayfield and Dennis the Menace continues to live on Elm Street in Hillsdale, I lived the first eighteen years of my life within a block of Walnut Street in Newport. The first seven years were spent on Hazel Street (one block east of Walnut) and in 1959 I moved to South Main Street (one block west of Walnut). As a matter of fact I was born on Hazel Street in the old Harris Hospital (now the site of a parking lot for Union Planters Bank) less than a block from the four-unit apartment building at 412 Hazel where I would live until age seven.
Do you ever "go back" to your old neighborhoods? A couple of months back, Arkansas Times magazine published an article about the famous Fred's Grill in Newport. A gentleman by the name of Red Nelson who has been in Arkadelphia for the past fifty years brought this article to me knowing I was from Newport. I already knew that Mr. Nelson had been a coach at Newport High School for a couple of years in the late '40s - early '50s. He is always asking about John Minor and Billy Dean Paige, two of his ballplayers. In reminiscing about Fred's Grill, Mr. Nelson and I discovered that he and his wife had lived in the same apartment building at 412 Hazel in which my family lived for a few years after. How small is this world?
Well, this conversation took me back to Newport and to Hazel Street. Certainly the first two or three years are "remembered" only through old photographs or the retelling of family folklore. But I have free flowing memories of my last three years of living on a quaint tree lined street with a fountain of friends young and old. In an apartment building (even a small four-plex), people are coming and going. I particularly remember Faye and Brooks Brown living there a while (much later in life well after Mr. Brooks Brown passed away I took Faye and Miss Margaret Van Dyke to St. Louis for a Cardinals game around 1987 - a trip I will forever remember). Also, Mack Cox and his family lived at 412 Hazel while I was there. Mack is the uncle of littermate Peggy Cox. Two "young" nurses lived up above us. One being Irene Guinn (Monday), Greer's aunt, and the other being a really sweet person named Dorothy, whose last name I can't recall.
Next door to me were Mr. and Mrs. George Grass (a couple like the Wilsons living next door to Dennis the Menace). Mr. and Mrs. Grass had a daughter, Elise Runyan, who lived with them and was about my mother's age. Elise was my number one baby sitter. Her two dogs (boxers Butch and Penny) were my dogs. At least I treated them as such. Elise was a waitress at the Silver Moon, which multiplied my trips "to the Moon" since my dad took me along with him out there on occasion as well. Elise will always hold a special place in my heart.
Gene Bennett's grandmother lived on the corner of 4th and Hazel behind the Walnut Street School. Cookies were always available at Mrs. Bennett's. Mr. and Mrs. Arvil Alvis lived across from Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Alvis is still a jewel today (I saw her at the Millennium Reunion of the NHS Classes of 1950-1960 at the Silver Moon last fall with her son). I'm pretty sure Boots and Johnnie McGinnis and Paul lived around the corner on 4th. My dad managed the Lion service station across from the Methodist Church at 3rd and Laurel for Mr. Boots McGinnis during part of this time. Across Hazel Street from me were the Lewis' and the Croffords and Mr. Odell Johnson had the big rooming house on the corner of 5th and Hazel next to which I would walk on my way to the Walnut Street School in the first grade. In the entry of Mr. Johnson's rooming house was a huge stuffed moose head that was quite impressive to a five year old. I would go over there often to visit Mr. Johnson and Mr. Elton Davenport, one of his boarders and a friend of my dad.
The two closest playmates my age during this time were Mary Wynne Parker and Mike Stephens. Mary Wynne lived at 510 Hazel (one block south) and Mike lived across the alley from me in the 400-block of Laurel Street. I must have been smitten by Mary Wynne since I still remember her phone number being 447. (Just for the record, my phone number was 759 and those are the only two numbers I remember from that time.) About the time we moved to South Main Street, phone numbers were changed to include a prefix. Some forty years later, my mother's phone number is still JA3-3508.
I also remember David Heasley living on Laurel (one block east) as well as the Gillihans and the Duncan sisters (Billie, Kaye and "little" Margaret who was my sister's age). I had to walk past Mary Wynne's house to get to kindergarten at Miss Martha's (Mrs. Martha Wise). I spent quite a bit of time on the porch of Mrs. Faye Johnston who lived on the corner of 6th and Hazel collecting words of wisdom. Mrs. Johnston was later my third grade teacher. Of course, walking just one block to kindergarten and later just one block to the first grade was a dream for any parent. Standing on the steps of the Walnut Street School with my first grade class and Mrs. Helen Shoffner will always be remembered through a classic photograph that many of us possess. Since my mother had worked at Harris Hospital before she married, frequent walking trips were made there to visit her friends and her uncle, Dr. Cyrus Gray. We would often go next door to the old Hazel Hotel for coffee or a Coke. I remember sitting on the steps of the post office across the street and watching that big old hotel building burn about 1961 or so.
Just this week I walked beyond my memories and revisited Hazel Street over a few drinks and dinner with young pals Mike Stephens and Freeman Travis. We met Wednesday at Bennigan's in Little Rock after the conclusion of a business meeting I had in LR and laughed through smiles and tears for three hours. Freeman recalled walking to first grade from his house on Leona Street near Remmel Park and picking up Mary Wynne to accompany her to Walnut Street School. Mike would cross the alley into the yard of the apartment building where I lived and we would skip and run to school to meet other friends in that first grade class.
In one of her replies to the Miles' Files, Betsy McCall remembered going to Gene Bennett's grandmother's house after school for cookies and Mike recalled going over there for snacks as well during our visit. The three of us talked about times then and now, especially those times shared in grade school, in scouts and in our freshman year at college when we were together at the U of A. Freeman shared a picture of his daughter from a Valentine's Day Dance 2001 accompanied by the son of Peggy Cox. Our lives come full circle and the world continues to shrink!!! In no way was three hours enough time to relive thirty years, but it was fun trying. I'm sure an encore is in the works. I capped off my night with Mike and Freeman by calling Gene Bennett as I was traveling back to Arkadelphia. Oh sweet memories!
In addition to my visit with Mike and Freeman this week, I have also paid personal calls on Mrs. Virginia Umsted Castleberry and Mrs. Ima Jean Paige, excellent teachers they were, since my last Miles' Files. Were it not for the skills learned from their tutelage, I would not likely now be banging out remembrances of days past. Besides the visits already mentioned, I have "talked" recently by phone or in person or via email with 1970 mates Jim Reid Holden, Cherry Lou Smith, Joy Stanfield, Mary Wynne Parker, Kathy Spann, Nancy Rhodes, Kristine Artymowski, Diane Madison, Rickey Harris, Drew Stewart, Margaret Ann Gillihan, Laura Benish and other Dogs of Yore Woody Castleberry ('69), Carl Cross ('71), Patti Forrester ('72), Lee Gardner ('72), Karen Fortune ('72), Bill Lindsay ('67), Alanette Hare ('67), Harry Goodyear (69), Martha Conner ('68), Buddy Jones ('64), Steve Castelberry ('57), Becky Hemenway ('61), Mary Lynn Pinkett ('71), Lawson Anderson ('72), Jim Andy Wallace ('74), Leon Nicholson ('75), and Kim Hout ('78) about old times in the place we call home.
Over the past three weeks, Patti Forrester ('72), Bobby Gray ('69), Jim Andy Wallace ('74), Pam Dean ('67), and Woody Castleberry ('69) have been added to the Miles' Files list now totaling more than 120. Littermates Victor Proffitt and Ann Gardner have registered on the NHS website bringing the total of 1970 registrants to 51. For classes from 1959 to 1981 (twelve years either side of our graduating class), the 1970 registrant list is second only to the Class of '64 with 54 registered. I haven't reviewed every class, but I'm certain that the Class of '51 has more registrants than any other class. The website now has its own domain name at: www.nhsalumni.net Visit the site and register if you haven't already. If you have, contact others and encourage them to sign up on the site. Webmaster Harriet Brantley Lane ('64) has been working on this name change for sometime, so give her a big Hound call. Whoooooooo, Hounds, Fight 'Em!
I encourage you to let your mind wander to one of those streets paved in memories. Whether it is Beaver's Maple Street, Dennis the Menace's Elm Street, our own Hazel Street, or another of your favorite neighborhood streets, take a mental walk down a memory lane. Kathy Spann mentioned to me that with each name she recalls from her days "back home" another name comes to mind, somewhat of a domino effect. The same thing can be said of the places where we walked together. The times we shared in that place known as Newport are the reasons each domino falls against another as the memories blossom. The opening lines to the Beatles song "In My Life" from the Rubber Soul album exudes the feelings I have for these times and places.
"There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all."
I remain Miles from Nowhere ... guess I'll take my time!
joe
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