There is a park bench across the street, come sit with me and let's look at this old building together. A lot of living has been done right here on this street corner and under that tarred-roof. I know some of the history, more than most living today but not all of it...and I never will.
Do you ever contemplate on a building or a traditional event or maybe a person in town that you really think you know a lot about?
If so, you will find a certain security in just knowing a place, a time, an event or a person...some of the knowledge never changes. It is truth and it is timeless.
The only things you catch changing are the facts....they change as more truth is unearthed to show its shining face and sometimes that is unsettling for lots of people. I prefer to stick with truth....and it better be the kind that can be told to everyone without hurting feelings, exposing criminal activity or adult mischief that ought not be happening.
No sir, no secret is totally safe with me. My aunt used to say that telling me a secret was like putting it in a sieve.
All these years later, I cannot/will not keep quiet about anything unusual or exciting --or out of order --or just plain secret.
In my personal world, I like all the cards of this life laid out there on the table -face up. I want to know what everybody's hand looks like. In fairness, I want them to know exactly what I have going on...I don't like competition, I like co-operation....work it all for the common good....I will cover your back, you cover mine...I won't let you fail; you protect me likewise....I won't let you down....even when you let me down.
I was taught honor and duty and pride and integrity and all the Godly virtues my parents held important in the post war years of affluence and the commonly held belief that if you were very, very good then God would reward you very, very much and when you got through living the wonderful life He made possible for you because you were so good, you would go straight to Heaven when you died. (I still believe this for the most part...when it seems to be failing, I start to course-correct and redirect my thinking and always wonder why I am amazed when immediately I see improvement. At my age, I am not changing what works for me...just excited to see what all will happen next if I keep trying to be a good person!)
As you are aware, every memorable story has a place at which the author can begin. In my family, not a one of us would choose the same point in time to start to layout the complex maze that directly effected our lives. It takes a lot of groundwork in any family to come to much of an understanding of just one century of the people we descended from and I am trying to reach into over 200 years of our ancestry and still won't be able tot tell you about all of them.
So, to understand what will eventually involve your heart and imagination if you choose to read much of my writing, you must embark with me on a more simple journey...a tour of my life.
Wait, don't go. I know I just got through having told you about the whole pie I was serving up! Now it seems I have switched it to just one piece left on your plate; but let me try to entice you to stay with me by promising you that if ever life at The Carrollwood was dull, I was nowhere on the premises.
First things first: In my opinion, I must tell you all I know about The Marbury Rexall Drugstore. The Carrollwood on the northwest side of town would not have been as I know it today if it had not evolved from this family business which was located at:
100 Park Avenue in beautiful downtown Ruston, Louisiana.
This address will remain a prominent one to me all the days of my life. (Having had a grandmother who had a propensity for the finer things life had to offer and money could buy...the address was what she termed "Swanky.")
In my elder years, I look at the address with a different observation than my young adult years and in my less than swank vocabulary, I announce, "This ain't Dallas, people!"
We are just small-town fodder and never were what you could call 'Uptown' --except in our own frame of reference. I sigh as I write, because it is probably the only important point I have made...where else does any thing like this matter except in our own little world!
Let me further expound: If it gave peace of mind to have believed that an address on the planet was a great one and we could bask in the certainty of God's blessings for us alone--then so be it and the Devil take tomorrow. (He can have it anyway, tomorrow never comes in my book.)
I admit, in my younger days, to entertaining ideas that if the store was ever to be closed down as a local pharmacy, I could call 100 Park Avenue my home address. I would have living space on the ground floor, my bedroom on the second and the top floor would be an artist's retreat with plenty of space for my various projects.
Reality was that when the time came, I was deeply entrenched in family life with 17 years of housewifery behind me, 4 teenagers at home with my husband and a budding career in freight distribution and brokerage. The fine old building was sold to some clever folks who renovated the second level of the 3 story downtown building as their own residence...even restored the lovely stained glass windows and opened a fabric shop on the ground floor...
Since all this happened during the days when I was driving 18-wheelers cross-country. I made it a point to go up 167North every time I left Baton Rouge with a tanker truck loaded with hazardous material bound for a place in Freedonia, KS. On that particular run, it put me through Ruston between 10 and 11pm on three nights out of the week. I would ease across the railroad tracks, mindful of trains but my mind on that building up on my left. At Christmas time, strange how this happens: my mind's eye could see distinctly the life-size Santa Claus waving a friendly mittened hand from the storefront windows to all the passers-by.
I felt a certain envy for the new owners who were building their lives on top of the memories my family had made on that exact same piece of real estate. Being of vivid imagination, I envisioned the days of the store in the time my mother was growing up. I often wondered would the new owners enjoy knowing that my mama had donned roller-skates as a teen and zipped up and down the sidewalk with other pretty blonde haired girls after school...not for fun specifically--but that was how they delivered the fountain concoctions and burgers in those days before the war.
I am in memory lane mode now as I tell you how much Mama loved her roller-skates....used to joke with us about how she needed them later on when she and Daddy built their dream home in the countryside of northwest Ruston--what I now call "The Carrollwood"...a long, rambling affair. A "Ranch-Style" when the 50's made that type construction popular.....and when the new concept of whole-house air conditioning made it tolerable in the hot and humid, sunny South.
Always one to be less than satisfied with status-quo, I longed for a home with the grand style of the Old South...no less than 4 white columns...two-story and lots of gingerbread trim. Later in life, my father divulged that he too wished they had done something more traditional....especially when the heat of summer built up terribly high inside our home due to too much single pane, plate glass on the southern exposure and the un-insulated, low attic with barely any crawlspace for a regular size human to maneuver himself. This is a consideration one makes when checking electrical problems or in this modern day of installing fire and safety security systems.
The house did then and does now entrap us occupants with unruly greenhouse effect of three large picture windows....but the view of the large pond down the hill is breath-taking, serene and unmatched to our way of thinking. Our friends seem to share this opinion when they come sit and enjoy the view with us...it is not usually too long in just the looking that the menfolk ask if they can stroll down to the water and fish.
Jump back downtown, in future writing about days in the family business, I will post for your interest several early shots of the store. I will share with you whatever comes to mind of what life activities consisted of in the early years of my life and even before my birth according to the stories related to me and what the photos tell to you.
We will talk about the famous Dixie Theater up the street from the store on a future occasion....my grandfather was one of the several investors who built it. You will be fascinated with my version of the tale of how the chandelier fit for an opera house made its way to The Dixie.
Most small towns were much the same but all were unique due to the people who called them hometowns. I will endeavor to bring a sense of combined history shared by our hometown with photos as I find them.
For now, I will go ahead and enter the ramblings of the old lady I have become.... and begin a new topic...maybe my words will help to jog a memory of your own.
