Candidates Return papers by July 8, 2025

Guest Editorial

By Harold French

I miss the town where I grew up, where we had neighborhoods with children playing and you knew your neighbors. My hometown was Stockbridge Massachusetts, where you knew almost everyone walking on the street. We didn’t need house numbers because we all had names that we all knew. The few employees that the town had were residents of the town. We didn’t have to leave town for the necessities of life, we had two grocery stores, a store where we could buy clothes and toys at Christmas time. We had a hardware store where you could buy a large variety of hardware, guns and ammunition, and PENNY CANDY. We had two businesses with lunch counters, a drug store, one gift shop, a meat market and a bank. There was even a barbershop and a tailor. There were 7 places to buy gasoline which included 2 car dealerships. We even had a real newspaper that had pages of local news and cost a nickel. We had a volunteer police department and a volunteer fire department with close to 100 members and a police officer on the street. We didn’t have much in the line of tourists, just people who came around for a concert at Tanglewood. Most of those people stayed at Heaton Hall or the Red Lion Inn and a few boarding houses around town. Tanglewood was a formal place where the women wore gowns, and the men wore suits or tuxes. We had no museums except for Mission House. There were many dairy farms and hundreds of horses and probably a thousand chickens. You could hear cows and chickens in every neighborhood. We had real health care and doctors who made house calls. If you had a medical emergency, you could go to Riggs where the doctors were Medical Doctors. No need for 911, you just picked up your telephone and the LOCAL telephone operator knew you and your family.

My hometown has become just a place to suit the needs of city people with second homes and visitors. I sure do miss my hometown of Stockbridge Massachusetts.

Addendum

To Carole: I sent what I wrote to my brother, and this is what he sent back. Harold

“My additional thoughts. What happened to us where we all take care of each other and keep an eye out for all of us.

Helping each other, not being afraid to ask for help or offering to help others.

I don’t remember homelessness, there were those down on their luck, but they were not forgotten.

I don’t remember those lacking medical care, always taken care of.

Now it is me and l. What’s in it for me or what do I get out of it?

I don’t remember politics much. You just voted for who you think would do the best getting the job done and then we supported them to be successful. They did it for the love of the town, not the money or agenda.

We didn’t grow up with prejudice, people were judged upon character. Some beat to a different drum, but nobody cared, they were neighbors.

If you were in need, help was with your nearest neighbor. Doors weren’t locked. Always able to get shelter and use the phone. We shared, we loved, and we remembered.”