What happened to "Mayberry"?

I was watching Andy Griffith last night and it made me think back to my own childhood. I grew up in a town that seems like a twin to Mayberry. It was small, predominantly poor and relied heavily on farming to keep it alive. At the time cotton fields were everywhere although human labor had long since gave way to combines, cropdusters and other assorted mchinery. We had a cotton gin which burned down when I was young and I still remember seeing the glow on the horizon as it burned for days.
The town was segregated although not a trace of racism was evident to me as a youngster. My grandfather would deal mostly with the poorer population and he loved them all genuinely. He ran accounts in a small notebook for most of the people in town and they always paid him, always. The women that would come to shop at my granddads produce stand would usually have several children in tow (they would take on the role as daycare for the entire family so they might have several people's children with them at any given time) and more often than not, he would tell me to load extra in their bags while he gave each of the kids an apple or whatever treat was in season.

There was a cafe around the corner where we would go eat breakfast sometimes and there were always the same people sitting at the same tables talking about the same things day in and day out. All of them drinking coffee and all of them listening to all of the conversations that were going on. They would occassionally yell a reply to someone across the room.

Nobody locked their doors back then. There were no gangs. There was very little crime and it was usually nothing more than someone getting drunk and becoming just a bit too loud for their neighbors.

I remember these times fondly and oh how I wish I was back in that little cafe listening to the old timers telling their stories of the one that got away. That town is gone now, replaced by a thriving metropolis with a casino and numerous resturaunts, crime, neoghbors who don't know each other, and traffic jams.

It saddens me to see a little town "grow up". My little town is long gone now, and the experiences I had will be treasured memories forever, but the generation now will never know what it's like to live in a town that is untouched by hatred, where everyone is family regardless of name or race. Sure there were feuds, and there were fights, but usually once the battle was over, people went back to getting along. Regardless of a persons wealth, they were all happy and everyone for the most part was willing to do whatever they could to help out everyone else.

I wish we could go back to those towns when it was so much simpler to live. Life moved at a slower pace and it was easy to get lost in the stories of the old timers. I appologize for the length of this post but I just felt a little nostalgic and felt the need to write it down.

I miss "Mayberry".

I never lived in Mayberry, but as a kid spent some time in smaller towns. It was only a matter of time before the yuppies discovered each area, swarmed in, and built their huge homes with five car garages.

Driven out were the mom and pop stores, replaced by Super Wal-Marts and other strip malls.

It's interesting to see how places change over time. I recently drove through a small city I lived in as a kid and it looked completely different to me. Not to mention an extra 10,000 people added in.

So much for progress! <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Here's what happened to Mayberry.

Three things converged on small town America in the 1970's - the beginning of the global economy, the end of American manufacturing and the wholesale shift of the population to urban centers.

The mythical Mayberry of long ago was no paradise, though. As Secretary of the local fire company, which was founded in 1947, I have the records of the day-to-day activities of the community over the years, and yes, it was a time of less crime and more community, but it was also a time when you could die from a simple cut, where, if you happened to be Black, you could not sit and have a cup of coffee in the same place as the whites, a time where a Woman could not legally own property if she was married, and a time when a car, a refrigerator or a television was a major luxury.

The Mayberry of long ago was a filtered, idealized version of the past, and while many of the things we long for in small-town America are fondly remembered, it's all to easy to forget that what we have today is a fantasy for the days of Mayberry.

Today, I can fly to Chicago and come back again the same day for $179.00. Today, I can call my grandmother in Michigan and talk all day long and not pay a cent for the call beyond my $24 a month calling plan. Today, I can drive a car and expect it to last to over 200,000 miles. Today I can call a simple 3 digit phone number while in my car and gain access to emergency services. I have this fantastic thing called "the internet" that gives me access to many more people with whom I share values and ideals (like this forum) than I could ever find in Mayberry.

Mayberry wasn't real, any more than the television show "Friends" was real, any more than a "reality tv" program is real. Shows like that represent the common practice of idealization of a memory or a representation of a desired state.

But you can make your own Mayberry if you want. One thing that we've found in our community is that people can and will join in community activities, and that the Mayberry ethic is alive and well, it's just not in the Mayberry context. You have to work to invent the circumstances that allow people to express the trust and commitment that I feel is intrinsic to most of humanity, and there's no easy way to do it.

There are countless organizations out there that are in need of people to help, to participate, to make a difference, but they can only reach out just so far, you have to make the effort yourself. As Woody Allen once said "99% of success is just showing up" and that's true of community organizations in general.

If you don't know your neighbors, is it because you're waiting for them to say hello first? If you want to have a cup of coffee with someone, did you ask them?

Let me leave with a true story of how you can get some Mayberry ethic back into your life.

Last winter, there was a major wind storm in our area and a huge tree came crashing down across the road. It took down many poles, knocked out our electric and phone service and was a huge mess of wires and trees and so forth. There were many trees down all over, so the repair crews didn't arrive until quite a few hours later - maybe 3AM. Well, I thought that working in high winds, in freezing cold was horrible, so I made up a few pots of coffee, got some snacks together, put them in the dining room, and went out to the crews and told them to come in for hot drinks and to use the bathroom as needed. Several of them took me up on the offer, and after about 6 hours, the power was on and all was well.
Fast forward to the fall of 2006, and I'm down at the firehouse and I'm trying to deal with a stuck pulley on the flag pole so I can change out both the flag and the rope. It's a 30' pole, I'm there alone, so I can't tip it, so I'm there tugging, flapping and generally having a bad time of it. A utility truck drives by, and what do you know, it's one of the guys from the crew that fixed the wires by my house. I don't recognize him, but he says, "Hey, it's that guy who let us use his bathroom!" and I say hello, and he asks what I'm up to, and they quick set up the bucket truck, swap out the pulley on the pole for me, and go on their way - probably violating who knows how many rules and regulations. But it's the small stuff like that that makes a community. It's banking good deeds, which invariably come back one way or another. I'm not a religious person, but I do like the idea of Karma - the net good (and bad) you do is cumulative.

I've rambled on here a while, but I hope you get the message - the Mayberry ideal is there, you just have to look for it a little bit, and live it a lot.

"To every thing there is a season" A famous horsetrainer came home from working on a bad movie about a horsetrainer. His idyllic cattleranch was all torn up by access roads and test pits. He had sold the mineral rights. He wrote in a horse publication how " he didn't hold with kooks" but he felt like having them treesitters come save his place. I had to ask him why kooks saving redwood forests he didn't care about should feel obligated to help him out? I listed the roster of current 'horsewhisperers' And suggested they'd look grand in their roper boots and quarterhorse crease hats locked down on a bulldozer. He didn't think that was very funny. "My people carved this ranch out of wilderness with their bar hands." I replied " your people took this land behind the US Cavalry from people who were allready here, grazing buffalo." Each season brings something, and takes something away. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I have drove through mayberry several times, it looks no diffrent than most places.

Mayberry lost its innocence when walmart moved into small towns. The town now is no longer crime free.

While I didn't grow up in Mayberry I had a very similar experience.
I grew up in a small colonial town in Delaware during the 50's. My father owned the local "mom & pop" drugstore on the main street. The town had many local small businesses on that main street and it seemd that anything we needed could be purchased there.
Everyone knew everyone else. People watched out for each other. If a kid fell off of a bike and skinned his/her knee a stay-at-home would come out and bandage it up and wipe away any tears. If a neighbor was in need everyone pitched in and helped.
Crime was almost non-existant, no-one locked their doors at night and cars were outside with doors unlocked and many times windows down.
I moved away when I went to colleage and have not lived there since. My parents lived there until the both passed away. After my father died my sister, brother and I could not even find a key to the front door of my parents house. Seems there probably never was one.
Sadly those times are long gone. I miss them

how can you find employment in such small town? everyone likes to live in crime free area but those places don't have jobs.

I grew up in the Central California version of Mayberry. Oil town, everyone worked for the big oil company, or the big electric energy company (think cromium 6). Fun was hunting for jackrabbits, pheasants, dove, and quail in the hills and flatland, and drinking Coors from an eightpack. Now the hills have been sold to a Japanse oil company and fenced off, the flats are all under crops, thanks to the CA aquaduct, two state prisons have been built in the city, with a third only ten miles away, and the only inhabitants are the few retired oil workers stuck there, a few prison guards, the families of the inmates, and a jillion illegal migrant farm workers...

The city people moved in, and then whined becuase they didn't have thier botiques, BMW and Cooper dealerships (and roads ok for thier little toy cars), fancy resturants, rap music, drugs and cheep floozies when they got bored with eachother. SO they imported them, and the stupidity that goes with it. Then the started whining that it wasn't what they wanted, and it was getting built up, so once they outnumbered us (or could spend more on lawyers and lobbiests), they made it so that only those who live right in town can get cell phone coverage or broadband, or even phone lines newer than the Nixon administration. They also amde it neigh on impossible for there to be any kind of industrial or commercial growth, so the kids of the town are forced to leave so they can help thier parents pay for the increased property tax as they outlanders artificially drive up property values.

ANd when we go back, it isn't home any more. The ponds are dry, becuase what once was the water table for say a hundred houses and three farms is now feeding a thousand houses and no farms. The game has been chased away becuase they don't understand that they can't let thier dogs run free. And after they shut down the few real jobs in the area, things get worse becuase everyone who isn't on welfare is either one of the paper pushing outsiders or has moved away. So pretty soon, no one comes back, while Ozzie and Harriet raise thier crack smoking, gangsta wannabies on MTV and reality TV, while forcing thier little artificial world view on everyone else who has to actually work for a living.

No, I'm not bitter or anything. Can't you tell?

Forgive me for being a curmugeon, but...

Mayberry never existed.

I was intially raised in a small southern town and was moved away kicking and screaming at an early age and had opportunities to visit frequently.

This gave me a chance to grow up seeing a contrast between what I remembered growing up there and what I was seeing in the outside world.

I grew up watching the show as well and was struck by the absence of anyone who wasn't white.

The Mayberry town drunk was a friendly lovable coot, very unlike the drunks I knew growing up.

Not everybody liked or trusted everybody like in Mayberry. The Lutherans didn't like the Catholics, and a Jew was nowhere to be found in my little south louisiana town. They were there no doubt, just laying low out of fear of the good ole boys in the white hoods and pickup trucks.

There were thefts of property (I heard suspiscions that some of my older cousins were the culprits, but never proved)

I can guarentee you there were rapes and child molestors it was just no one talked about it.

And if you had brown skin, you weren't even considered a member of the human race and could be treated like a dog with impunity by "good respectable Christian folk".

To quote Billy Joel;
" the good ole days weren't
Always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems"

I know what you mean about some of that. I lived on the outskirts of Wetumpka in a place called Lake Region. At the time the little community I was in was mostly summer homes and retired people and it was all white. The downtown area where I spent a lot of my youth at my grandads produce stand was mostly black though and I really loved that place.

One story that seems to be typical of that area of town was when a man came and asked my grandfather for a loan to help him buy a house. My grandad helped him with a loan and apparently the conditions were that he should pay the money back when he could. My gandad passed away several years later but his wife came to their house after he passed and gave all the money back. My grandmother was surprised to see this woman standing their crying and trying to hand her all this money. Apparently my gandmother didn't know about the money but that's the way my grandad operated. If he helped someone out, noone ever knew it because he didn't want anyone else to know they needed help. I guess you could call it pride by proxy. Even though my grandad never saw the money again, those people made sure that they paid back every cent of it, and my grandad never said a word about it.

Back then, at least in my hometown, you couldn't tell the rich from the poor. They all dressed the same, they drove beaters instead of fancy new cars, One of them I knew, never owned a new pair of shoes. He always bought his wardrobe at yard sales. If he had a car I never saw it but I saw him walking around downtown all the time. Life moved at a slower pace back then. Most of the people were farmers and they always had time to stop and talk with you no matter what color you were or how old you were. They were always pulling me up telling me stories about the way things were when they were younger.

One interesting thing to note, I noticed there were two groups of people in my hometown. The really really poor, and the farmers. They both told similar stories of their younger days but if they ever started the story with "One time we was fishing" you could pretty much bet that that was going to be the only true statement in the story. After that it was fanciful tales of catching fish of biblical proportions. I loved those stories the best.

Most of them are gone now and I think it's a sadder world because of the loss. They would hang out and talk with anybody that would lend them an ear. They didn't seem to care who you were, they just knew they liked you instantly and they all treated me like family whether they knew me or not.

In 1998 I moved from the 6th largest city in the nation to a small town on the Tennesse River. My first impression was this was Mayberry. After more careful observation, I saw that most of the small family owned stores were empty and closed, Super Walmart was where everyone shopped now. Some of the major employers were clothing factories where locals made Tommy H, and other well known clothes and collected minimum wage or slightly more. You could buy a decent house for $40K, if you could get the credit somewhere but the job/pay/credit thing seldom balanced out in your favor.
The local people all pretty much knew each other and their personal business, who they were related to and so on. My girlfriend grew up there and filled me in on all the local culture. Seems most people were on some sort of prescription meds which were handed out in bulk and paid for by Tenncare with little oversite into quantities issued or required. The ones that couldn't get pills bought them from those with excess at a stiff premium.
The brother in law of this girl collected unemployment and worked 10 hour days making roads for $12 an hour. The unemployment check helped pay the wife's drug bills and keep the 4 kids in clothes from wallyworld.
A job paying anything close to a liveable wage was nearly impossible to find and in 2000 most of the local manufacturing went overseas or south due to NAFTA. This has lead to more crime, drugs and poverty.
The one thing that hssn't changed much in decades is that kids that go to church all day Sunday every week, all discover reproduction at a very early age and practice every chance they get. Many do not finish high school due to having children to care for.
I had left there in 1999 for practical reasons but stay in touch and find out the latest from time to time. There are some sad stories that I will not relate here. I do miss the town with 3 traffic lights and no traffic and I miss the people I know. What I miss most is the dream that there are places like Mayberry. The dream is gone for me, I have come to the conclusion that the world has changed some for the better and some not.

"...Mayberry never existed..."

Oh man, next you're gonna tell me that Hooterville didn't exist either, aren't you???

Men like your grandfather still exist.

Just look in the mirror.

His actions and honor color how you see the world and yourself.

The disdain many of us hold for "the way things are today" is because we all see the same thing at 5:00 pm every day.

Most of our view of the world as a whole is through the lense of the tv camera.

I had a tv reporter tell me once that people doing good for others isn't news because it's the norm.

Men like your grandfather don't make the news. They don't want to

Saying "please, and thank you", letting other people pull in front of you in traffic, holding the door for ladies and the elderly, catching the elevator door for a perfect stranger, or paying for an eldery person's lunch at McDonalds is expected behavior.

This is evidenced by the fact that it is too numerous to make the news.

Violence, etc are news because they are the abnormal. The jerk cutting off others in traffic like his NASCAR hero makes us angry because he isn't obeying the norm.

He stands out because he is abnormal.

After further thought, I have to revise my earlier statement.

Mayberry does exist not as a geographical or chronalogical event so much as an ideal (not a perfect one mind you), but an ideal to strive for.

To paraphrase Ghandi, "be the (Mayberry) you want to see in the world".

Sounds like your grandfather gave you a gift of an example to live by.

Amen Brother!! I too grew up in such a small town & we have lost much of what made life great to be living, with this higher pace of life that we are stuck in.

I guess everyone here has ther own Mayberry and I believe that's what makes us long for the great outdoors. I guess that's about as simple a life as one could hope for. Living off the land isn't easy and neither is survivng a catastrophe, even if it's for a short time, but it does have the unique effect of bringing people together. When the power goes out taking the TV and video games with it, the family actually comes together and spends quality time with each other. I remember as a kid when the power would go out, the parents would gather all us young 'uns together and tell stories or make up games that we could play in the dark. Back then we didn't have video games and we only watched TV for about an hour a day so we didn't miss it. I might even start turning out all the lights once a week or so so my family can have some fun like that.

Hi Izzy - I'm one of those 500 with a Silver Springs address only because it's the closest Post Office. I drive in to Ocala every day for work (about 20 minutes or so on a good day). I still can't imagine living any closer to "civilization."

In the last 25 years we have improved industrial processes to a point that only a handful of people on the planet hold the knowledge on how to recreate our modern civilization. Machines making machines. It's a chicken before the egg kind of thing.

I will be taking a blacksmithing course this spring, and I encourage everyone to try and pick up, and maybe even master, these "old" skills to pass down to the next generation. Even today putting together your own electronic circuit is becoming more difficult.

I have all of the Foxfire books. I spent several years in the same region as the people in the books and I got a lot of my survival skills first hand from the people they interviewed. If you haven't read the Foxfire series, I highly reccomend checking them out. They aren't just informative but they are entertaining too.

For those of you who happen to be in the area or passing through...

The Foxfire collection was originally started as an elementary school project to get the kids to learn more about their heritage and to listen to their elders and document what was typically either poorly or not well undocumented lifetime knowledge / experiences.

This started around the early 70's (IIRC) and the timing was pretty good because it blossomed with some help from the "Mother Earth" group and other organizations.

These writings were eventually compiled into a book called Foxfire, which subsequently grew, I belive that they are up to volume #12 or so. As others have mentioned, they are well worth reading and they cover many aspects of life mostly from around the 1800's on, although much was similar in the 1700's.

If you happen to be on US 441 and traveling through North East Georgia, take some time to pass through the town of Clayton, located in Rabun County (Rabun County comprises that little "dog ear" at the top east corner of Georgia, and is about 40 miles south of Franklin North Carolina).

Just north of Clayton, on the west side of 441 in the neighbor hood of Rabun Gap you'll find the Foxfire Museum has a little historical collection of buildings (log cabins, several of which are actually around a century old).

These include a black smith shop, church, several miscl. buildings including a home and stores. It is a great day trip with the kids. When we were there about two years ago, there was a lady there that was handweaving Tartan cloth. It is amazing how much labor goes into something as simple as cloth. The particular batch she was working on was a custom pattern, it was very specific in how many threads between this color and that, and the details were mind boggling.

[Sidenote: The museum was originally several miles north of its present location and recently had to move to the current location. The buildings and everything else were transported.]

Regards,
Comanche7

Martin,
I am responding to you directly as your comments hit a chord with me having grown up in Upper Bucks myself. I grew up riding my mini bike in either the cornfields in front of my house or the cow pastures behind it. I could see RT 309 from wherever I was so I didn't need a GPS either.
Regarding the "Mom & Pops", not to defend Walmart here, but if you look back far enough in the history of commerce, you will see these store put the old "general stores" and Feed and Grains" out of business just like Walmart has displaced Main street recently. I think that 25 years from now, when historians are looking at the the genesis of retail, they will put containerized shipping up there with the invention of the cotton gin and the printing press.
Your comment on dying from a simple cut hits home with me as my mother was orphaned by age 6 halfway due to her father, a horse of a man, who came 1/3 of the way around the globe from Poland to make a better life for him and his wife, stepped on a nail in a Pittston mine and died 3 days later from tetnus.
I also think you and I would agree the Mayberry people seem to remember actually took place during the end of the Great Depression. It was a time of great hardship, much more like the Cinderella man than the Hollywood produced Andy Griffith show.
Finally, I remember a Bucks County where if you didn't go to college, you went to the Tech school where you learned a skillset that is now performed by mostly by "new immigrants" to this country.
In one short generation, we have "advanced" to the point where I don't have a car to teach my kids how to drive a stick shift, I have to teach my own kids safe gun handling instead of having the Boy Scouts or the HS Rifle team show them and kids have never seen an animal die to provide food for the family... we are moving forward much quicker than any generation in history. That much I know.

Here's another reason to miss Mayberry -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CvoC551i2E

Amen.

In one short generation, we have "advanced" to the point where ... I have to teach my own kids safe gun handling instead of having the Boy Scouts or the HS Rifle team show them and kids have never seen an animal die to provide food for the family...

(Knock on wood) Every summer, when we take the troop to Scout camp, I fear that the People's Republic of Massachusetts will have taken away the shooting ranges, but, so far, so good. We still have ranges for archery, rifle, and shotgun. After firearms safety lessons, many boys are out there with 22's daily shooting all the rounds they can during free shoots and rifle merit badge. The older boys, after additional training, can then go on to the shotgun range and go after those crafty clay pigeons.

The concept of hunting / trapping and cooking small game is still taught, but not actually practiced anymore in Wilderness Survival. When we were boys, we would regularly sample culinary delights such as squirrel, frog, rabbit, and snake; not anymore. Fishing is all catch and release now too, except salt water species. At least we can still hike and camp and make fires (but, make sure you follow LNT).

Mine is Southwestern PA's Washington County, and the Southern, South Hills Suburbs of Pittsburg, -just to the North of it. Both "Back where I Come From!", -as Mac MacAnally used to say! (Early 90s New Country).

I'm a County north of there now, -but my Heart of course remains Fondly back in both Places! The NE Washington County Countryside the more so, -in that of course its so Spandiferously (Don't Bother, -you won't find this one in the Dictionary!) Country and Rural ! Than even the also Spando enuff "Southern Subs".

There's of course much that yet applies to and from me, -from that ole adage, -"You can take the Boy out of the Country, -*But you Can't take the Country out of the Boy!*" Not one bit of my earlier such, -has ever since faded away! (though I've certainly since picked up some Good non-country ways, as well). Also John Denver's "Take me Home!, Country Road! (...to the Place, I Belong!...!). And of course his "Thank God I'm a Country Boy!" And while at it, -a slight adjustment in Chicago's late 70s "Take me Back to Chicago!... To by now you know what!

My Heart's of course Warmly and Ardently still Back There! In Washington County and those South Hills!

Back in late '68 as a 11 year old upon the Move, -it was like moving onto the Kentucky Frontier! Not that the Half Wooded Blue Collar neighborhood I'd previously Grown Up in in South Pittsburgh was Bad either! But the Place was growing So So and Stale! Got out at just the Right Time!

To soon Experience what I like to call a "Personal Golden or Classic Age", (a la Ancient Greece, the Rennaissance, a Vintage Year and Harvest, Portuguese Ships Boldly Setting Out to Explore the World!, etc.), -over the next Two or so years. That First Apollo Moon Landing, Getting Bitten by the Stamp Collecting Bug, -and a Good number of Other Things Else! (Not the least of which was beginning to Discover Gals! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> and All !).

A Lesson you Learn, -from the later, much more Humdrum and "Fish Out of Water" of Times!, -is to *Not* take that earlier, Spandro, Golden Age!, -for *Granted*! -As you once did!!! "Make New Friends!, -while Duly Keeping the Old Ones!..."

(And speaking of Kentucky Frontier, -I just happened to get assigned to do a Report on Daniel Boone!, -there in my new 5th grade. Of among other things, -him moving over into the Yadkin Valley, -and then Moving Out again! Further Westward! "Because its Getting Too Crowded!...).

I'd noticed my first Cloud Shadow moving across the Roadway and Ground!, -something which previously never even occurred to me as "Happenable"!

And speaking of "Southern" and the Southland, -I was then, including Washington County itself, -only two Counties North of the Mason Dixon line! So while the Burg may seem as Yankee as Boston or Chicago to a Southerner, (and quite Correctly and Understandably so), -I was and yet am, "Almost" a Southerner! (Now 3 Counties North, including my current own).

I once took a Nice Trip down to Atlanta, -a Long Held Dream. I stayed there for 3 or 4 weeks, -long enuff to to now Fondly enuff Feel that that was a Place I once Lived! -Not only Visited. I rode their MARTA all over the place! Whenever I catch WSB Atlanta in the course of my DXing, -which is pretty Solidly Regular, -I *get* that Feeling of Familiarity! Whenever I hear them talk of this or that Road, Suburb, or whatnot. (And "O'Neill Outside" is a Good to Great Outdoors Radio Show, -emanating from there at nearby Kennessaw Mtn, on Saturday mornings). I also once Climbed Stone Mountain! (via its typical Trail), one Summer Evening in the gathering Dusk. Another kind of Long Held Dream! I've mentioned this in more detail, -back in an earlier post.

Well the point that I was here leading up to, -concerns this Good Ole Redneck Shopkeeper I ran into. Upon telling him that I was from Pennsylvania, -he said something to the effect of "I Like you, -even if you are a Yankee!" Followed quickly by a Good, Hearty, Understanding, Laugh! Helpful Guy in a moment when I Really Needed it, -for which I of course remain Appreciative.

While there is much that I of course Like and Love about the South, -I have not jumped Fully, -every last bit into the "Southern Pool". and remain in many Respects also, -in a Good, Great, and Spando Northern one! (Things are "Cooler" here! As well as right now *Colder*, -here on the bottom edge of this Northern Winter! -But I'm keeping Perfectly Warm!). (Heck!, Philly and Bucks County over on the other end of my State, -are even Closer to the Southland! But quite Understandably enuff don't think themselves so!). (I'm *Glad* we've Preserved the Union, by Beating ya all down there, back in the Civil War! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />. I Hasten to Add, -"With All Due Respect!, -for the South and its Reasons!").

I of course Live every bit in the Present, -as well as being one hoo Warmly and Fondly Looks Back to the Past and to the Great Outdoors Countryside, -from which I came! A Sunny Summer Afternoon Lawn!, for example,-is as Spando now! As it ever was back then! And so on concerning many things else. Often the more things Change, -the more they Stay the Same!

"Take me Back!, to the Country!, -Urban Sidewalks are *Not* my Style!....!"..... [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

When I was a kid we moved to a little town just below Mount Rainier, where every day at school I would look out the window and sketch the NW face of the mountain during Social Studies class. At night we would tend to our chores, and on the weekends we would entertain ourselves with a game of touch football with friends out in the street, or with an expedition into the big woods behind our house. It seemed that we could walk from our backyard clear to the park border if we wanted without encountering another soul along the way, even if we wanted to. I spent many days and nights in those woods, learning mostly by experience how to stay dry, build a fire (much to the displeasure of the fire dept and my parents), hunt and trap animals, how to kill with my bare hands, how to navigate without a compass, how to forage grub etc. Later on as I became more mobile and more interesting to my dad, I made it to good fishing holes and such.

Nowadays when I go back to where I grew up, it is inundated with housing farther than I can walk in a day. Things change I reckon.

(Or anyone else here for that matter).

I know you mention being near the Far Larger and more Dangerous Mt Ranier. But Helens of course is not terribly that much farther away. And chances are great that you were under some pretty heavy Ashfall ! (even *if* perhaps a little West of Helens, -prevailing Winds blowing the great mass of it Eastward). Have you either Directly or Indirectly witnessed St Helen's Eruption or mighty Ashcloud, -perhaps some distance away? (if you were even in the general Washington / Oregon vicinity at the time).

If you don't mind answering, -about how old were you at the time? (May 18, 1980) (I was late 22).

I was of course Far to the East, at the time, -here in Southwestern PA (my Beloved Washington County), -Clear over on the other end of the North American Continent. (You're Washington State, I'm Washington County <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />).

Thus I could only catch it in print Media and Newscasts. But Man of course was that ever Something! Even if only a Pipsqueak by Volcanic Standards! I mean it was no Crater Lake, Pinatubo,Toba, or Tambora!....Speaking of such Print Media of the Time, -Two Great ones are a "Grey Covered Newsweek" I've seen at the time, -and most certainly the National Geographic which came out some months later, -revolving around and featuring the Event. Especially that Great Foldout of the Blast therein!, -No diminishment meant to any of the Rest. Including their Map of the Blowdown zone!, -Just Look at that!!!

Ash *did* of course come here to the East, -if not readily Detectable or Visible.

I *did* however Directly Experience our Mt St Helens Experience!, in one way. Twas some months or so thereafter, -when I had the Nice Little Pleasure of coming across packets of Mt St Helens Ash, -at a Quiosque at the Mall. For only a buck, -I obviously Snapped one up! Twas about the size of a smaller Tuna Pouch you might find in the stores nowadays, -Transparent of course so as to be able to "see the Product".

To say the least, Chances are overwhelming that it was Genuine. Had exactly that same Gray as in any of the Photos. Plus otherwise Looked like it!, -I so knew in my Gut. And with this "Product" so Readily Available from the Pacific Northwest on Eastward, -Why Not do the Real Thing!?, -Why bother doing a Fake Job? And so I can Safely and Overwhelmingly assume that it was Genuine!, -the Real Deal!

Alas!, -between the various Sordid personal Problems and Preoccupations that I had in Life, -many Un-asked for, -I've Regrettably long since Lost!, -that Prized enuff of a Possession! -Genuine Mt St Helens Ash!

Last but not least,-while I Love and continue to Hold a Place in my Heart!, -for our Mt St Helens Experience!, -I'm flat out Indifferent to somewhat Disliking, -of the Name itself! (just something Personal, -and it has nothing to do with any Helens!). Nearly all Volcanos have some Really Neat, Apt, and Spandiferous Names! To me personally, -Mt St Helens just does Not!

But Name aside, -What an Experience and Memory Mt St Helens 1980 was!!!!!

What more or less Direct Personal Experience have you or others maybe had with it?!?

(And any other Volcano or Earthquake & the like, -would also do!). [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]