Hawkeye

My Hometown part I

Interesting blog idea, Hawk.  I like it.  And your hometown sounds a lot like many other small, middle American towns that are the backbone of this country.  At least they were in days gone by, when you could wander the streets without fear of strangers, nuts, terrorists, etc.  Where you could hitchhike (or thumb a ride, as we used to say) without worrying about where you would end up. 

My hometown was a very small town in Pennsylvania.  It is now technically not even a town anymore but there is lots of interesting stuff about it on the web if you want to look it up.  It was the basis of a couple movies and one Superman comic book but there are less than 50 people currently living there.  

I grew up in Centralia, Pa. where there has been a mine fire burning since about 1960.  And yes, I am barely old enough to remember the early days of when it started.   Centralia back then held about 2000 people, most of whom have now been moved away by the gov't because of the danger from the fire which originally started from burning trash in an abandoned coal hole right next to our church's cemetary. 

When I was a kid growing up in the 60's, I didn't think much about that fire.  Heck, there were two other mine fires burning in the area, but both were small enough that they were able to excavate and extinguish them.  The main one was too big and too deep to extinguish.  They tried flooding it with water and fly ash to smother it, and tried digging it out, but it spread too far and was getting air from abandoned air holes from mines throughout the area.  My grandfather was an anthracite coal miner and he told me that the largest vein of coal he ever saw went right under the center of the town.   I guess the fire can't get enough air in that direction though because it is burning away from Centralia now. 

US Hwy 61 had to be closed because the understructure has eroded from the fire and most of the towns residents had their homes bought up by the federal government and torn down.  It looks like a ghost town now with a few odd looking structures still standing amid empty fields that were the streets I used to play on.  I read that it was the basis for the video game and movie, Silent Hill.  There was also a really bad movie made years ago that went straight to video, called Made in America which was about two boys who grew up there and then travelled around America finding other places that had disasters like it.  It starred Lori Singer and the now departed Christopher Penn, Sean's brother. 

I lived there till I was 19 when I entered the US Air Force and when I got out 4 years later, they had already started moving residents out of the town so I bought a house in a neighboring town. 

There is plenty of info and pictures about the town available on the web and even quite a few youtube videos and a documentary or two.  Check it out if you get time. 

Good luck with the blog, Hawk and thanks for sharing.  I hope I didn't ramble on too long about my town.

My Hometown part I

Ahhhh, hometowns are a wonderful thing.  I come from the other side of Iowa.  Southwest Iowa.  Harlan to be exact.  Even though I have lived in Nebr. almost 4 times longer than in my hometown, my strongest memories are of my hometown.  I think when we are young and out running around playing, seemingly with no cares in the world, that is why these times are so strong in our memory.  Of course we never really had any big worries such as how to pay bills, whether the car was going to keep running, etc.  My biggest worry was whether my Mom was going to be mad at me when I got home because I hadn't heard her calling 3 hours ago and she was sure I was just ignoring her.  I was just having too much fun playing hide and seek or making "dolls" from hollyhocks, making mud pies, sitting by the garage eating freshly picked rhubarb and not worrying about the germs.  Sometimes I look back and wonder how we lived thru out childhood without all the safeguards we have now.  Thankfully we and our parents didn't worry about all these things.

It was and is a very nice town.  Just big enough to have really everything you could need.  Close enough to the big city to be able to find anything that the hometown may not have.  So much quiter than the "big" city though. The people so much nicer and more helpful.  Even when I return for a visit there are still people I know or who knew my family.  Of course with the advancing years, those are becoming fewer.  Returning for a class reunion was interesting.  2/3 of the class doesn't live there anymore.  Fortunately enough do so that these reunions can be organized. 

Now I'll just sit back and enjoy the memories.