I know. I know. Thomas Wolfe has told us that we can’t go home again, but I decided to visit. I wanted to reconnect with old friends, neighbors, classmates and cousins, of course. Quite a few of us are distantly related.
My hometown is Rawson, Ohio. One of the founders was my great great great grandfather George Kelly. There is a street named for him and he donated the land for the school. Six generations of us have lived there. My grandfather and great grandmother’s names are on a stained glass window at the church that my grandpa helped build and where I was baptized.
Rawson is a little town. It has had 407 residents for as long as I can remember but it might have more now. Many of the houses looked even better than I remembered them.
Downtown once had three groceries, a restaurant, hardware, a barber shop, beauty parlors and a variety store, but they are closed now. The elevator is gone. The huge brick school has been bulldozed. The classic old water tower has been replaced by one of those golf balls on a tee. Downtown is pretty much empty with vacant lots and parks, but the post office is still hanging in there.
When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, every little town had a homecoming festival, complete with a parade and a queen’s court. At 17, I got to take my turn riding in a convertible and waving. However, at some time when I was living out of state, the homecoming was stopped.
This was the first big attempt at restarting Homecoming. The name of the new festival was Rawson Proud, and I wanted to support it.
And from the beginning I was proud of it. Although huge rainfalls had flooded the park just before the event, the organizers turned the park event into a downtown street festival, complete with a dunking tank, of course, and a pony ring. There was a parade with lots of old cars, tractors, floats, a band, horses and all the emergency equipment for miles around. We had pulled pork dinners and some square danced in the streets. It was fun.
My husband and I sat with my parents, aged 86 and 87, along the parade route in front of an old abandoned building where my grandpa had his office and where my newlywed parents had an apartment. I had lived there for two years and was happy to see I was holding up better than the old building.
After the parade, Dad showed me the wall above the post office entrance where John Dillinger fired his pistol when he robbed the town’s bank. The hole in the brick is still there. I loved it that someone used a marker to draw an arrow pointing to it.
My parents knew everyone there, I think. We had a constant stream of visitors. I’ve forgotten some names, but the faces looked familiar and they were smiling.
The Class of 1968, always the maverick class, elected to meet by a classmate’s truck on display. Eight of our graduating class of 51 dropped by sometime during the day.
It was fun to see folks I’d not seen in decades and to meet their better halves. We turn 65 this year and are trying to figure out this Medicare thing and social security. We are all in the same boat. It did me a world of good to see them.
So did I go home again? Well kind of. It has changed over the years, but I’ve changed, too. I started out there in that old building, but I don’t live there now. As a Blue Bird, I planted a little tree in the park and now it is fully grown.
Out of my five choices that day, I’m glad I selected the hometown festival. I recommend a similar choice to others. If you haven’t gone to a class reunion, this might be your year to give it a try. If you have a family reunion coming up, please go and get to better know your cousins. You will not be sorry. They know the stories your grandpa would not tell you.
I also learned that supporting town festivals is more important than you might think.
Before I left, I was going to take a photo of the sign on the street named after my Grandpa Kelly until I realized that it was misspelled, Kelley. Dad said it had been that way for decades, and I had just forgotten. He said to just be happy that the old family that started it all was remembered.
That really put it all in perspective for me. You can start a town, but once you are gone, it belongs to those who live there now.
I cannot go back to that old town of 50 years ago, but I can visit and be proud of the town it has become.
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