Before the Back Patio: A Love Letter to Main Street America
I am a Southerner, true to form. I grew up where people smiled a lot and spoke to each other on the street, where a helping hand was the rule, not the exception. Where neighbors sat out in their front yards and talked to other neighbors, looked out after each other’s kids, and knew your name.
A little further back in time, the milkman delivered milk in glass bottles in the morning; the local dry cleaners delivered freshly starched and ironed shirts in the afternoon. The local daily newspaper was delivered around 5 p.m.
One of my best memories growing up was the afternoons after work, when my parents got the old webbed green lawn chairs and sat, not on the back patio, but on the front lawn, reading the daily newspaper. They greeted and were greeted by neighbors as they came and went late in the day.
We wandered down Main Street, America, shopping in mom-and-pop stores and speaking and smiling to people on the street. We, of course, took all this for granted, never even thinking or wondering if this way of life would end.
We stayed wrapped in Linus’s blanket of security as we grew up and made our way out into the world. As it turns out, it wasn’t unique to the South; these smiles and helping hands extended throughout the country.
When I wander down memory lane in this ‘sappy’ frame of mind and ponder the best ways to communicate the essence of community to an audience, I can’t help but wonder, IS THIS JUST NOSTALGIA THAT SPUN OUT OF CONTROL?
