Stacy Matthews - Dear Mary 01 - Think Twice Before You Order Read Online Free Page A

last. 
    Later

Later
    Dear Mary,
      I drove to the cemetery and put some flowers on the
graves. I have to say they keep the cemetery here in much better shape than
others I’ve seen. The grass was cut and each headstone had flowers. It
certainly would be nice if all cemeteries were kept that way. I never really
gave much thought to this kind of stuff before, but I do now.
    Not a lot has changed from the last time I was here. It’s
funny how you don’t think of things or people from your childhood as getting
older or changing. When you drive into Edwardsville, even though it is a
four-lane highway, with all of the greenery on either side it feels more like
driving down a country lane than a highway. The whole town is only twelve
square miles and has about forty-five hundred residents.
    The train tracks split the town in two. On the north side of
the tracks are churches, schools, homes, and lots of farmland. The south side
of the tracks would be considered more the “downtown” area. When I was a kid,
downtown was conveniently located at the end of Third Street, which was about
fifty yards south of Newton, the street I lived on. Downtown consisted of the
post office, bank, fire and police stations, a grocery store, Betty’s beauty shop
and of course Eddie’s barber shop. Apparently you can’t have a small country
town without a barber and beauty shop. At that time downtown was roughly a
block and half long, and the businesses occupied both sides of the street. The
only thing behind the business and at the end of the street, were cornfields
and wheat fields.
    Both the Police and Fire departments were the first buildings
you came to. The fire department is on the east side of the street and police
department on the west side of the street. If you were in need of a fire truck
or the police and you lived on the North side of the tracks, you just had to
hope there wasn’t a train blocking them.
    The post office is next to the fire department. It’s an old
stone building that looks like it was built in the 1800s and probably was.
There are apartments above the post office. I wanted to live there so bad, but
Dad said they wouldn't rent an apartment to a ten year old, just my luck. It
still looks the same today, maybe a little older, but I think those kind of
buildings looked old when they were built. I’m not sure who owns the building,
but they do a great job of keeping it up. Next to the post office is Eddie’s
barbershop. That is where all the old guys would go to play checkers and
gossip, even though they don’t like to admit they were gossiping. Next to
Eddie’s was an empty building and the guys were trying to convince Eddie to
expand the barbershop. Across the street from the Post Office, and next to the
police department on the west side, was where the old bank and general store
used to be. There was an empty lot next to it, and that is where they built the
new bank back in 1976. The general store went out of business when they built
the new bank. At Christmas they used to have a bonfire in that empty lot.
Everyone would drink hot chocolate and sing Christmas carols. I know it sounds
kind of hokey, but it was so much fun. You knew everybody there. It was like a
family reunion, only you liked all of them. They don’t do that anymore ; kind of sad.
    Betty’s was next to the new bank, and the grocery store was
next to Betty’s. Most of the women in town went to Betty’s to get their hair
done at least once a week. Of course the beauty shop is where the women would
get the reliable information about anything going on in town. My mother always
said there might have been a little bit of gossiping, but most of the time they
were either talking about their children or exchanging recipes.
    All of the numbered streets in town run north to south. At
that time there were only three ways into the south side of town, all of which
were crossed by train tracks. There are seven streets total that connect to
Newton, third