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.