- Place with Fond Memories
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- Favorite Flowers
- Favorite Gifts I've Received
- Little Moments You loved
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Place with fond memories:
I think this is what stopped me because I'd planned on posting a bunch of pictures of this place but I never got around to going to get photographs. I actually took them years ago but I think they are saved on my old laptop as I cannot seem to locate them. But the place that has fond memories for me is my hometown of Tarrant.
I know people get tired of hearing those of us from Tarrant talk about how great it was but it really was! I know many people probably feel the same way regarding the place they grew up but I seldom hear them talk about it. My own three children seldom mention people they went to school with (and they aren't that far out of school) or any of the landmarks around their "hometown" so I don't think it had the impact on them that mine had on me. I would think that maybe I'm just way too nostalgic because my ex grew up in the same place and he doesn't seem to get warm fuzzies about it. He thinks I'm nuts for keeping in touch with my old friends through Facebook! But I am not the only one that feels this way about Tarrant.
I can't describe it to anyone who didn't live there. Looking back it didn't seem like it was so special but maybe that's because we hadn't experienced the world outside of it much. There were some people that were better off financially than others and definitely some not so well off. Most of us were from working class families. But we all played together, went to school together, church together, etc. There really weren't darkly drawn lines between classes. There was some bullying but it had little to do with class and more to do with just kids being kids. I got picked on because of my last name. The times being what they were and not being a coddled child, my mom told me to let it go and my dad told me to suck it up. I did and the picking went away. I understand kids nowadays tae it to a whole different level with social media and all but I also think there's a difference in how parents treat their kids nowadays, too. But that's getting off-topic a bit.
I remember going to kindergarten at Central Baptist Church. Halfway through the year, the church caught fire and we finished the year in another part of the building. The next year, my class was the first 1st grade class to start at the new Tarrant Elementary School and the old Boyles school that my cousin had attended was torn down. Townhouses were built in its place and years later, my friend and her new husband would occupy one.
When I went to the middle school, my 6th grade class was the first to use the new round 5th/6th grade building that had been built over the summer. I believe that building space is now used for a library as the old 7th/8th grade building was demolished and an entire new facility rebuilt when my sister was in about the 8th grade.
The old high school is sitting empty and falling in. It makes me sad. I'm also broken-hearted that the football field is overgrown with weeds and brush, the bleachers are falling in and the only ones to grace the place besides the occasional vandals are the ghosts of players, fans and band members past. I loved Friday nights! I loved being a majorette and twirling and strutting my stuff out on that field. I have fond memories of the bandroom, standing at my locker with various friends, including a few different boys and even of the classrooms and teachers I had.
I remember getting my first kiss behind the gym at the Middle School after a Sock Hop from a boy who passed on earlier this year. I remember playing countless hours with kids that lived up the street, riding our bikes up, down and around the block, carving little houses into the neighbor's bushes, playing 1 base kickball, playing in the hose pipe when it was hot, running up and down the gutters on the side of the road after a hard rain.
We went door to door selling donuts and various other things without fear and we knew the houses we could always count on for a sale.
I had an after school job at Kessler's Pharmacy that I loved. I didn't make but $3 an hour (less than minimum even back then) but I worked with some of my friends and drank homemade milk shakes from the fountain.
On weekends if there wasn't a football game or a band competition, we would pile in someone's car and cruise up and down the streets until we were allowed to venture out of Tarrant and into Huffman/Roebuck.
Almost every corner of that little town holds some kind of memory for me. One day, maybe I'll write a book about it instead of just a blog!
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