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(I
have been straightening and sorting the
photographs, albums and assorted
memorabilia in the trunk where I keep
such things. Among them are three albums
my mother kept of the columns I wrote in
The Wake Weekly over about eight years.
(I am repeating this one
from Thanksgiving week in 1983 as a
contrast to the town today and as a
reminder that many, many aspects of the
good old days were not good at all. For
those who never saw it, Barracktown was
an Army surplus barrack building – at
one time I believe there were two or
three – rented out to very poor people.
It was near Seventh Street, and the road
to it was truly a path.)
Friday, at lunchtime, I indulged myself
in one of my favorite exercises. I took
a sandwich – and later got a BIG ice
cream cone – and trucked around Wake
Forest, looking at what we have.
(I was not slighting the
firemen’s fish, but I cannot eat that
much twice in one day. Their flounder,
and it was tasty, was supper.)
My route was a little
higgledy-piggedly, and I didn’t cover
all the town. I was looking for the
sites here and the tracts there where
new building is planned, the new houses
now going up and the areas that have
changed, some very dramatically, in 13
years. I was thinking about such things
as the fact that a quarter of the homes
in town back then were substandard and
many more of the streets were unpaved. I
was thinking about what the town will
look like in the next 13 years.
I remember, and I know many
of you do also, when the only way to get
to Pine Avenue extension was to go to
the hog pen and take a sharp left up a
dirt track. There was a privately
installed half-inch water line serving
some of the homes there, and the water
line ran over the road. In the winter,
people either left the water on all the
time or it froze solid. Most of the
people living there were elderly and
still are, and they just couldn’t repair
their homes. That was the first
Community Development project, and it
changed the whole neighborhood. Now all
the homes look tight and tidy, and
there’s a new home tucked in among them.
Over in Cardinal Hills, it
looks as though Shorty Lee is getting
ready to open a new street, and all the
lots on another new street are either
sold or already built on.
Up around Glen Royal, the
homes are tight and tidy too, and the
mums are still blooming in many yards. I
sat for a minute, looking at the old
mill and wondering what its future is.
It was a good thing I had a
truck for the trek into Barracktown,
though I could have used a mountain
goat. There are only six tenants left in
the old World War II barracks, according
to the town. I hope they can move out
soon, but I also hope that some people
who eat their Thanksgiving turkey in
tight and tidy homes, new and old, take
a little trip afterward up that rutted
road for the sake of their digestion.
It’s not to put anyone on display and
it’s not to point fingers. No; I’m
talking about the importance of
understanding, at a time when we’re
building $100,000 homes in town, that
not everyone has a home like that. We’re
still a town of great contrasts. For one
thing, right beside Barracktown are
bright new homes.
Excluding Barracktown,
because there are tentative plans to
tear it down, only about 6 percent of
the homes in town are substandard now.
That is something to be truly grateful
for, unless you live in one of the 77
homes where there is too little space or
no bathroom.
I think you would be amazed
if, on Thanksgiving, you took a complete
tour of our town, amazed by the changes
and amazed at what hasn’t changed. My
tour, as it always does, taught me about
giving thanks. |
