Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Tom Boggs

Music, especially songs of home, do, indeed, carry me back to that dirt street of the 40s and 50s in my hometown, but not only music transports me home.

Some folks never leave that hometown. That might make them love it more, or maybe not realize what it really means since they never left. That’s a matter for the mind and heart of each one of us.

Now, if you had the kinda childhood I hope you did, it matters not how far you’ve traveled, how many places you’ve been, or over what period of time that has been, your memories lead you home again…at least in your heart.

When have you last embraced friends and family or taken a walk where you used to stroll, surrounded by folks who knew you…and loved you?

Do you think hometown folks in faraway places send off for local weekly papers to keep up with current news? Based upon what my readers of 30 years have told me, they are hoping it will bring home, as remembered from long ago, back to the mind of those long removed from their homes of yesteryear.

Folks are caught up these days with doing things that used to be, but try as we may, will there be another time like your family walking out through a squeaky screen door to go sit under a pecan tree, eat a home cooked meal, and wash it down with sweet iced tea.

I reckon one of the other things I miss the most is the seeing everybody I knew downtown. Walking up and down the streets, and stopping to visit with a merchant I’d known all my life, as he casually stood at the front door, and swept the sidewalk, ready to stop and talk to whoever walked by. Shucks, we’d go in a store just to talk or maybe we and the merchant would be happy at the sale of a 5 cent RC Cola, plus a penny deposit.

I remember so well my long gone boyhood friend, Melvin Moose Glass, living way up in Virginia, calling me up, and saying, “Hey, Boy. I been listening to these folks talking up here. It’s not the same kinda talking we do.” Then, he might say, “Thomas, I get so homesick I sometimes think about driving all the way down to Linden for just an hour or two.”

Our mutual, also gone good buddy, Franklin Aydelott, and I drove up there to visit Melvin and his wife, Sue, several years ago. We had a good time, and saw the sights, but the three of us boys spent most of our time together talking about our hometown, and what we did as boys many and many a year ago. Shoot, we’d remember those Friday night football games the way we’d like to remember them, even fudging a little bit about beating Demopolis.

My dear friends, don’t you listen to folks who up and tell ya that ya can’t go home again because it won’t be the same. Of course, it won’t be the same, but try it anyhow, and figure on taking something back with you from days gone bye. Even if you’re living right where you always have, you can still disappear back to another time right where you stand…or sit under a pecan tree on a starlit evening in the south.
See y’all there….ya heah?

Tom Boggs is a columnist for the Demopolis Times and a native of Marengo County. His column, “Days Gone Bye,” appears weekly.