Life is most full of wonder when looking backward

By Ben Hillyer (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Friday, July 18, 2008

There I was Wednesday afternoon, a thousand miles away from Natchez, and very suddenly 30 years in the past.

In what must have been a fit of nostalgia, I had decided back in April that I would celebrate my 40th birthday by revisiting a corner of my childhood that I had not seen since my family packed up the station wagon in Mechanicsburg, Pa., to drive to Carrollton, Ala.

From 1971 to 1979, I grew up in a classic suburban neighborhood in Central Pennsylvania. I was only 3 years old when we moved from South Carolina and nearing my preteens when we left to come back to the South.

I thought I had few memories of that period in my life — hazy recollections of the family house, my elementary school and the neighborhood pond.

But as I drove by 204 Cockleys Drive Wednesday afternoon to catch a glimpse of the split-level house in which I grew up, memories that I hadn’t thought of in decades flooded back.

Walking down the street, I remembered that pack of youngsters streaking down the steep hill in front of my house. Approaching the neighborhood pond, I recalled a pair of mischievous boys chipping away at the ice with their ice skates to get at the fish frozen just below the icy surface. Driving around the 60s-era school I suddenly remembered my classmates dressed in Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross outfits, waiting to see the Bicentennial train.

I had fully expected — after 30 years — for the landscape to have changed immensely. In fact, I had assumed I would have to look hard to find smallest traces of my past.

I had heard of others who went on similar trips to discover that their childhood homes no longer existed.

I was downright stunned Wednesday, when I discovered a street that seemed untouched by the past 30 years.

Sure, the trees were much larger and some of the paint colors were a little different. Despite those small changes, I felt as if I could open the front door of my house, speed up the half-flight of steps and still see that pinball machine Santa Claus left under the Christmas tree in 1978.

Even the next door neighbor’s mailbox was painted with same family name I remember from childhood.

Things were that real to me as I stood in the street recalling where the bus stop was and where we sledded down a neighbor’s hill during snowstorms.

The amazing thing was that Cockleys Drive was no different from any other American neighborhood of that era. Streets wind past similar houses with similar yards.

Yet, when we turned the corner into my old neighborhood, something visceral happened — something I really can’t explain.

In the late 1980s there was a popular television show called “The Wonder Years.” It for me has come the closest to capturing the life experiences from suburbia in the 1970s.

The popular television program first aired in 1988 and focused on the character Kevin Arnold as he reminisced about his teenage years during the 1960s and 1970s. The show focused on the Arnolds living in quiet middle class neighborhood with his family and friends.

In the background of this quiet neighborhood was the chaos of that time period in America.

Doesn’t sound like much of a plot, but somehow the nostalgia-laden show captured the attention of American television audiences for five years.

It certainly did for me when I watched it for the first time. I remembered the program as I thought about my experience Wednesday.

I did a little research about the television program to learn why that time is still compelling. In the final words of the show I think I found the answer.

“Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you’re in diapers, the next day you’re gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house, like a lot of houses. A yard like a lot of other yards. On a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back ... with wonder.”

Ben Hillyer is the Web editor of The Democrat. He can be reached at ben.hillyer@natchezdemocrat.com.