Page 125 - barefoot-in-the-sand-remembering-the-waning-days-of-the-hopewell-community-(1998)-bruce-c-gragg

Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 121/123

THE MEMORIES CONTINUE

These pages are not a complete recount of all events. Many individual
neighbors have not been remembered specifically; however, I can
remember something involving just about all the established families
living near us. Some of these tales of humor or history may at times
seem a bit disjointed. Many may seem a bit trivial or may even have
no real story, but they relate some of the events taking place during
my early years of growing up. They reflect how we went about our
daily chores and the task of getting an education, or keeping a
farmstead going. As in every neighborhood each farmer had a little
different way they did things, our neighborhood farmsteads had their
own way of doings their chores. There is no particular order to this
bit o' reminiscing, at times they just jump around various years. It
is a sad trip riding down that road and remembering the many faces
and voices that are gone. When you are trying to locate the place
where someone lived and have difficulty, only then does it sink in
how complete the death of the community has been. Many things were
recalled over a long time and finally an attempt to record them has
been made. Dream with me just a moment and think if we could go back
in time and relive some of those times, hear those voices again see
the community as it was so many years ago. To travel from homestead
to homestead still bits of a one time homesight still remain. It may
be only a caving in water well, what is left of a barn, farm
implements or a tree or a large oak stump, still everything has not
been erased yet. But, how soon will it all be gone along with all the
dreams that went into it. As many of the events were taking place,
the thing that makes it possible to record this on a computer had not
been invented. The transistor 1947, just to name one, lead to other
developments, and to computers. Many of us couldn’t even imagine what
developments we would see take place in our lifetime. I still chuckle
when I think of some of the lighter moments, others are just pleasant
memories of an age long passed with only a chance of returning to the
area but not the time frame. As in Charles Dickens’ book these were
thought of as "Hard Times for These Times,"

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