Blast from the past

Downtown, June 1941

Welcome to our town.

This is a Jack Delano photo of our town's crossroads in 1941, when it was considerably busier than it is now. That smokestack in the background? Gone. The two buildings in the back left? Replaced by a hay field.

The store on the right is still there, although it no longer has a gas pump. It is run by two really great Pakistani guys (who I've mentioned before, I think), and it's the de facto center of town.

The brick building on the left is the Town Hall.

There is no longer a path on the right; somewhere along the line, it was replaced with a proper sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. So the people in the picture are walking in what is now our neighbor Cookie's yard. It would have looked different then; the house was a grand old antebellum mansion with pillars. But it burned to the ground in 1996, and Cookie and her husband built a somewhat smaller house on the old foundation.

What's strange is that this photo is instantly recognizable by anyone who's been here, despite all the changes.