Types For Telling

1. I remember Grandmamma

Do you remember the old time firemen and the clang-clang-clang of their bells? Can you still visualize the spirited horses racing down cobblestone streets pulling shiny cylinders that belched black smoke into the air? Do you recall when people lucky enough to own an auto jacked it up on blocks at the first sign of snow? And when no one had an allergy-it was nothing but an itch?

Remember when out in the country you chatted with all the neighbors on the party line? When neighborhood kids snitched ice chips from the back of a nag-drawn wagon, and each week the knife sharpener’s cart sounded its ding-a-ling as it came down the alley? And those penny candy counters where a chocolate bar stamped “Free” meant you won a premium?

2. The county seat

Some things stay the same in the small town square where the time-worn courthouse rarely houses a prisoner any more but still plays host to the pigeons; and where the metal soldier with his bayonet and rifle has turned green guarding the entrance.

Slim church steeples punctuate the sky and small houses snuggle among the trees. Main Street, a series of store fronts, offers a jumble of bargains, and life is slowed down to a walk. Midway down the block a plump little housewife rakes dry leaves and her neighbor leisurely polishes his car while the kids toss a ball back and forth. The neat little houses and their tidy gardens wear a look of welcome in this pleasant world of humble people. Porches shade the old rocking chairs, and there’s a backyard world of big old barns and little hen houses. There are no neurotics or two-ulcer men on a diet of pills here where everyone lives in a relaxed atmosphere. The movement to the city has given a deserted air to some of these one-horse towns where they’ve even lost the horse and where street lights still dim if you plug in your electric shaver. There’s no place to go where you shouldn’t.

3. Changing times

Never in history’s hoary pages have we seen so many changes as in the period that began at the turn of this century and has carried through five decades. Medical men have lengthened our lives and mechanics have widened our horizons. The patriarch of sixty was a sage when this was oil-lamp land; but today at that age, he hasn’t yet hit his prime. Farmers who complained that automobiles frightened their horses, now hire crop dusters who are subject to fines for buzzing busses on the continental highway.

Many men remember with nostalgia the pigs feet and beer mug era; now they eat steak any day of the week and wash it down with vintage wine. The boy who was thrilled with the wrist watch he got for graduation, has a son who wears one to kindergarten. Out in the tank towns, townspeople used to turn out when the Frisco’s No. 9 steamed into the station; now the Diesel barrels by and the taverns will have to close early if it ever neglects to toss out the mail sack filled with pension and unemployment checks.

Tags: public speaking

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