Illusions on Streets of My Hometown

“Towns and neighborhoods have secrets and personal stories of people and places locked inside countless memories. People move from those places, but the places should never move from their memories.” 

Tom Kennedy

Twilight Time, to dream a while,
In veils of deepening blue,
As fantasy strides over colourful skies,
Of forms disappearing from view. 
(Moody Blues)

A twilight walk on my old newspaper route clashed with different versions of reality. The streets were paved, the ditches now sidewalks. The 2021 version tried to superimpose its current reality over my memory’s 1940-50 illusion. 

On the one hand, my memories of that route were distinct and sharply defined. Postmistress Allie Dillon lived there; over there was where Bill Hocking lived; neighbors Olaf and Mary Dahl on that corner. On the other hand, there is a different house where Mrs. Jeffrey’s house once stood. My old house now a school playground.

Current reality would have me discard memories that are cherished and indelible. It will try to prevail. Which is right, and which is an illusion? Is the illusion the current reality? Or is it my aged and wistful memory that is an illusion? Harmless illusions may be wrapped inside nostalgic personal history.

They are unlike those harmful illusions born of childhood innocence and bred throughout one’s lifetime, nurturing unfounded beliefs and myths contrary to truth. Harmful illusions cling to the old ways of thinking…products of misinformation, lies, and ignorance… that harden into core beliefs that block our growth as humans.

My Harmless Illusion  

During my recent visit to Braidwood, I stayed several evenings at my brother’s house. I like walking shortly after sunrise and then again at dusk, and this would mark the first time in 70 years that I would walk these streets. There was a time when I was intimately familiar with the town: its landscape, buildings, signless streets, and residents. This had been my “briar patch” where my surroundings were knitted into the fabric of my soul.

You look around you,
Things they astound you,
So breathe in deep,
You’re not asleep,
Open your mind.
(Moody Blues)

Memories Revitalized

As I walk, memories kick in and stir boyhood scenes:

• A baseball field neighboring a house, a barn in the back, an outdoor privy, a red dump truck, and chickens scampering searching for food. A 5-year-old blond girl playing with a dog and a young pregnant woman hanging clothes while a 7-year-old boy tosses and bats apples. 

• A young boy joining a pick-up baseball game at Buddy Perona’s front yard, delaying his Herald-News deliveries for an hour.  

• The Catholic Church with its small hall next to it. An attempted summer evening outdoor bingo game replete with mosquitos, sweaty humans, and hanging Christmas lights. 

• Entering the church watching two young boys at mass in the front row, snickering at Fr. Mayer’s sermon, and being reprimanded in front of the congregation.

• A 10-year-old boy about to enter the confessional, having prepared “Bless me father, for I have sinned, I lied 9 times…” 

• Seeing a young seminarian, Ray Stonich, prepare a future altar boy to memorize Latin responses that made little sense. (Ad Deum que latificat…)

• Turning again, walking even more slowly, and approaching the old high school and hearing the crowd cheer as Jim Touville or Gene Mullins scored and rebounded while Frank Bohac or Ross Blake coached, and cheerleaders cheered.

• That same gym where a 16-year-old played pick-up basketball games with young men on a winter Sunday afternoon.  

• Down main street, past Kessler’s, and Al Crater’s houses where Beverly and Diane playing in the front yard. 

• Past Dixon’s tavern, then to Pete Dillon’s through the window two teenage boys playing euchre with old Charlie and Matt.

• In front of Lulu and Floyd Nielsen’s confectionary, a bike with a canvass Herald-News bag stretched across handlebars, the boy inside buying baseball cards.

• A few more paces, brothers Toots and Frank Shaugnessy meat market, then the post office where the combination on lock #264 would free the mail.

• Bender’s barber shop, Kate Jackson’s store, and Pete Rossi’s house. Behind the Rossi Motel, the field where a teenage boy commandeered an open top gang lawn mower.

• To Roundhouse Street, a toddler tethered to a clothesline outside an apartment.

Braidwood Roots

Had I lived in Braidwood for 80 years instead of leaving after only 21 years, I probably would have failed to see the stark contrast of the town of the 40’s and 50’s. Gradual changes occur so slightly day after day, year after year, that these differences might barely be noticed. An absence of 60 years, however, shows only two pictures – the present and the past – rather than a life-long documentary. 

My recent sojourn to my hometown emphasizes the importance of returning to one’s roots, even for a short time. The expression that says to “…always remember where you came from” defines who you are today. Humble beginnings helped me to reintroduce and reinforce a virtue that can elude us from time to time. 

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colours from our sight,
Red is grey and yellow, white;
But we decide which is right,
And which is an illusion.
(Moody Blues)

So, which is an illusion, and which is right? I shall decide to embrace my old town as being right and 2021 version as a harmless illusion.