We could either A) Do a mini-research project and then have a 10-minute presentation in which you report your results
or
B) Write a one-page personal essay about a change or changes you’ve seen over the years.
Guess which choice 90 percent of the class chose?
The shorter assignment, B, seemed easier, though I tried to put a lot of effort into it. A combination of the second semester senior blues mixed with the fact my Dad finally got a job that will be moving him out of Sullivan, I was in a mood to wax both nostalgic and cynical about a town I grew up in.
My goal was to try the capture a hint of Twain’s mix of happiness and regret of how things change – for good, for bad, forever. I took my best shot at it, and the result you can shortly read below.
Note: I can’t vouch for all the facts included in this recollection. Any mistaken information I blame on the miscomprehensions of my younger self and not the present person who I am, since I simply wrote down what I remembered.
Fact or fancy, I thought you might find the perspective interesting.
Life on the Meramec, or at least a short distance from it
My father works for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Various promotions have bounced him from one side of the state to the other. In first grade, I worked it out that I’d moved six times before I turned the age of six, and we still moved a couple times after that. Nevertheless, we finally did slow down and put down roots in a small town called Sullivan, Missouri. And now, after a record 15 years in one place, a new job opportunity has arrived and my family is looking to leave their house in Sullivan behind. While I have not lived in that house for nearly four years now, the news got me thinking about the pros and cons of the town I grew up in and how it has changed since 1991.
The politics have changed. It was long rumored that the long-standing mayor when we moved there was the head of the area’s old Ku Klux Klan group. I didn’t know anything about that. It was also rumored that KKK was crudely spray painted on the back of the “businesses and clubs that want to welcome you to Sullivan” sign, but I never checked that out for myself either. Whether the mayor was racist or not, the only thing I knew for sure was that he was ignorant. He once gave a lecture to a high school class despite the fact his hearing aid battery had gone dead. Whenever people would laugh, he’d start laughing too before asking, “Heh, heh, what?” As you can imagine, we had much fun at his oblivious expense. While I don’t remember any of the topics he raised that day, I believe we all left with the conclusion that any idiot can make it in politics. Despite the long-standing legacy he built as mayor – his main accomplishment getting re-elected time and time again - he was finally pushed out of office by a candidate whose main campaign platform was the addition of a beer garden to the town’s Fourth of July celebration. That woman was later bumped out herself, and I believe the replacement has been traded out as well, though I don’t know who the mayor is now, nor do I care.
The population has grown, though the town hasn’t broken five-digits yet and the population signs haven’t been updated in a couple decades. Shortly after my family arrived, a new subdivision was christened and was hoped to be the site of 600 new homes. It was also built on a field that used to have a creek cut through it and still flooded in the spring. Local word of mouth kept the development from growing to the commonly known, and frequently shared, fact that the creek wasn’t as much diverted as filled in. Only in the past few years, as more homes were built on artificial hills – as the original model homes were constructed – has the subdivision slowly started to multiply as originally expected.
The public schools keep advancing and updating, following the earlier mentioned trends. There is more diversity in the classrooms and there are now more buildings to house them in. I’ve seen several “new” playgrounds over the years – with each new incarnation designed to be safer than the one before by adding tiny gravel bits to cushion falls, removing dangerous and suspect devices like teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds, and slowly converting everything to smooth, form fitting plastic. Granted, we still found ways to hurt ourselves; we just had to work harder at it.
The “new” playground that interested me the most was one put in by the middle school where I lived. After the holes were dug, but before the new jungle gym and swings were cemented in the ground, a friend and I jumped in and out of all the future foundation holes. Our intent was to be able to go back someday and tell our kids someday we’d been there at the ground floor. We raced each other, diving in and out of holes like gophers, and I think we both claimed to finish first; though it was really me. My last year of high school, a new school building was crammed onto the land next to the existing middle school. The old “new” playground is now a parking lot. The new “new” playground is set on the field where we used to play field hockey, kickball, and football. I can still claim to have been on the ground floor of this playground, but so many people share that argument that it makes me less special and unique than I once hoped to be.
Progress had been made in Sullivan. Change has reduced corruption, or at least made it less profitable for those who engage in it. Built as a railway depot, the town has shifted its allegiance to Route 66. We now have an expanded highway strip – with restaurants of every taste and size – and a maligned, but surviving Main Street. We have a stoplight now, which surprised me on my first trip back to Sullivan from college. After years of public discussion, and the proud declaration that we’d never need one, there it was stationed over the most dangerous intersection in town. It was located near my father’s work and I can think of multiple times while I was waiting for him in the parking lot and I heard the tell-tale crunching sound of an accident behind me, typically followed cussing and gesturing. When I first saw it, it hadn’t been connected yet, but still was wrapped in the black plastic to protect in during its transit.
The light still strikes me as the biggest change to this town, though a few new stops signs (that have me breaking the law when I cruise through intersections that used to be non-stop) have similar impact. Sullivan is different, and life it a bit faster paced, but it still remains a small, sleepy town that is only slowly, and begrudgingly, accepting change.
'just_shifting_through_memories'
