Ayden ... Way Back When: Stop and take a look back

For no apparent reason, I feel a need to take a look back at the columns I have penned since the first in September 2017. I cannot put into words how much I have enjoyed my work with the editors of our local newspapers. It has been a privilege and an honor.

When the column originated, I knew that I wanted to write about the Ayden of the middle of the 20th century. All of us Aydenies like to think that Ayden is a special place and that is all that matters. In other words, if Ayden was special to the ones of us who grew up in the middle of the Coastal Plains region of North Carolina, then, that is really all that counts. I believe, however, that there are numerous “Aydens” across the country — small towns in rural areas all over the United States that are special to the people who live and have lived there.

Why are these towns special?

When my friends and I reminisce about our time in Ayden, we speak of “no locked doors,” “everybody knew everybody else,” our memories of the sports teams on which we played, our schools and teachers. I could go on and on, and those of you reading this column near my age will probably do so.

We have our individual stories as well; the most important ones are the memories of our families and friends. Maybe like you, this is the central focus: precisely where we grew up (in what house or houses and on what properties), our mothers and our fathers and whether or not we had an extended family close by. I was lucky. I had grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins — either in Ayden or little Washington.

I remember the trips to Washington when I was a small boy with great admiration for my relatives who treated me so kindly. My family just lost one of those relatives, my cousin, Richard Hodges. When my family and I took the short trip to Washington, the first trips were, of course, when I was very young. Richard was a few years older, yet he allowed me to follow him around as he played tennis and took his little MG car to get a tune up at a local service station. I had never ridden in a car that was so low to the ground. It was fun for a little boy who was lucky enough to have such a caring cousin.

As I wrote more and more of the history of my hometown, I turned the clock further back before the 40s, 50s and 60s because the happenings of the first half of the 20th century often laid the foundation for what happened afterwards. I have felt intimately qualified to write this column since my father and his father lived their lives in Ayden. My maternal grandparents were born in little Washington, but spent almost their entire lives in Ayden.

I could go on and on, but, now, I want to switch more specifically to these columns. At first, I was confined to 300 words and I wrote strictly about the occurrences of Ayden’s past. For example, there were recollections of parades, voting patterns in Ayden, holidays, hurricanes, sporting events and so many others. There were excerpts from The Ayden Dispatch, the local newspaper of the times.

Bobby Burns, the current editor of The Standard, suggested that I increase the number of words, and I asked and was given permission to stretch my writing a little, to write about happenings that were not strictly about specific events of Ayden’s past — like last month’s article titled Holding Hands.

These “expansions” have meant to remain connected to Ayden … Way Back When, since those of us who lived during those times have lived long enough to remember holding hands in the ways and with the people with whom I described. This was meant to provide the reader with more variety and, hopefully, to attract a wider readership. I hope these objectives have been met.

It is my desire to continue for as long as I can sit at my laptop and compose. I hope that the reader has not only enjoyed my work but has looked away occasionally and remembered.