There goes the neighborhood
by Charles C. Hall, Ed.D

"We rarely notice the importance of a valuable asset `til it somehow disappears forever from our lives."

- Tolstoy -

Listen.

Do you recall the last time you heard the long, lonesome, plaintive wail of the steam locomotive when it departed your town, never to return? It was the last time you could board this black monster for Dallas, Oklahoma City, Emporia, Kansas, St. Louis, Mo., Chicago, Ill. and be served eggs Benedict, a steaming cup of coffee, settle back and read your newspaper for a pleasant experience on the Iron Horse. Something marvelous and mysterious went out of our lives somewhere in the midst of the late `50s and early `60s.

The last time I rode the Texas Zephyr was from Denton, Tx. to Emporia, Ks., returning from a summer at North Texas State to complete my course work for the doctorate in Psychology and Education. I fell asleep somewhere along the line, and awakened as the train was leaving the station. Sara, Julie and Mark had been waiting for my return. I imagine they thought I had missed the train in Denton. Suddenly, they saw some bags thrown from the coach door, followed by a fool jumping from the moving monster. It was I. I didn't know at the time that it was the train's last run. I still feel a great sense of loss for what each of us has lost in the days of the Iron Horse, with its lonesome, plaintive wail in the night as it neared the crossing a quarter mile from our farm house.

Listen.

Do you hear Gramps, Daddy or Momma reading the Sunday "funnies" as you sat spell-bound in one of those beloved person's lap? Those were the days of Ally Oop and friends; the Katzenjammer kids whose antics were our own; Tin Pan Alley with Skeesits and Corkey; the one picture cartoon, "Born Thirty Years Too Soon" or, "Born Thirty Years Too Late," so on and so forth. It's a lost pleasure - having a loved one on a Sunday morn reading the funnies to an ever-curious child, one which Father, Mother or Grandmother relished the closeness of a child squealing with delight, or silently capturing the simple insights of the cartoonists' creation. We seem no longer to take the time for such simple pleasures in which families melded and bonded. So it goes....

Listen.

Do you hear the exchange of gossip as the next door neighbor comes over to sit in the swing or the big rocking chair on the front porch ... just "passing time," in a slowmoving jerkwater town that no longer exists? You sat leaning against the railing while the men folk swapped stories `til you fell asleep with the low rumble of voices, and Dad had to carry you to your bed. It's a time for the history books because such neighborliness no longer exists. So it goes....

Listen.

The song "Where Did All the Good Times Go?" is a stark reminder of a society melding as "Family." Reading books, magazines and newspapers is an "expenditure of time" relished by relatively few. Television signaled the end of such mundane past times. A recent study found that sixty-to-seventy percent of us get our news solely from the toob. Average time in front of one is about forty hours per week, and it's one way. No exchange of information or ideas. The same study found that eleven percent of young adults cannot locate the US of A on a world map; only thirteen percent can find Iraq; forty-five percent believe aliens have visited Earth; fifty percent do not know that Germany was partitioned after WWII; only one in twenty mature adults have read a book in the past year; on and on it goes. Is it any wonder our education system ranks thirty-seventh in the world? ... after Poland for creeps sake! So it goes....

Listen.

Do you hear the familiar jangle of the trolley car up on Maple Ave., Main or Elm, or over on Lamar Ave. passing by the huge multi-block Sears, Roebuck building? No. All the trolley cars disappeared in the `50s in the cities of Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York when Standard Oil of California, General Motors and Firestone Rubber Co. prevailed on those cities to pave-over or pull up all the tracks, then sold smogbelching busses to them. Few people objected, at the time, to this blatant conspiracy. The country breathed a sigh of relief after the war in which two sides of the world were engaged in a death struggle. Everyone wanted to get on with their life, so the loss of the trolley went unnoticed - for a time. Now, many of us would like to see its return. So it goes....

Certainly we do not wish to see the return of segregated water fountains, restrooms, seats on trains, busses and what not. However, when we decide to do away with the "old," more thoughtfulness and respect for what we value needs addressing in an honest manner. What most of us value revolves around family, not just our own, but the community, the society and culture, all of which has the effect of sharing ourselves with others. We have drifted almost aimlessly into the abyss of "aloneness" where we have little time for "just visitin'. It's a lost art

So it goes....