There has been some comfort in nostalgia as we hunkered down during the coronavirus.
A video a guy from Springhill did about life in his hometown and mine in our growing up days is on the internet, and it keeps pulling me back. When I watch it, the words and images stir good thoughts.
And it’s not just a Springhill thing. We loved our upbringing there, but so did kids in Natchitoches, Many, Coushatta and other area towns.
All those communities had things that made them unique, but there were more similarities than differences in the way of life their young folks shared.
At a time when the pandemic has kept us apart, a video that shows how closely schoolmates and neighbors were connected in those towns is soul-stirring.
David Welch did the video. It’s a hobby. He’s a retired football coach who was a few years behind me in school.
His dad had a shoe repair business in town, and David was formed and fashioned by Springhill and its people. Just as I do, he still has some of the town in his blood and bones.
He did the guitar playing, singing and songwriting for the video that was created with mostly old black and white photos of people and places from his school days.
Those images are etched in the mind of folks who are spread far and wide now but who spent their teenage years in the same soda fountains, ballparks, hamburger joints and other hometown hangouts.
There are photos of paper mill smokestacks as Welch sings, “Things could be tough for a country town. They came in and shut the factory down. Things change…nothing stays the same.”
Yearbook pictures of classmates roll by to the words, “Some would say it’s just a poor town now. Just a shadow of itself. It’s best days are gone. But those memories, they will live on.”
And then the chorus, “In my mind, I’m seventeen. Back in time and back at The Hill. Dragging Main to see and be seen, eating French fries at Billy’s Dairy Kream. A Stampley song on the radio. Football games on Friday nights, the ‘Jacks would play; everybody came. Teentown dances at the old rec hall. Where did it go?”
Photos flashed of Springhill Lumberjack teams and the stadium where they played, the recreation center where kids danced in their socks, and of local singer Joe Stampley who became a big music star.
There were pictures of Main Street where kids cruised on Friday nights, the movie theater that had Saturday morning double feature westerns and our old high school that was torn down not long ago.
And more words to the song, “The old school is gone, replaced by a new one; the black and gold, it’s gone too. The memories, they still remain. Memories of those ivy walls, they live in us forever; they won’t be taken away.”
Interwoven in those lyrics are references to the school colors we wore and the alma mater we sang.
David’s words in that little four-minute video surely reflect the thoughts of those old friends and classmates who watched it. “Things change and nothing stays the same…but the memories will live on.”
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES