Main Street in Orange, painted by Todd Brown, used to be a place where everyone knew one another. Courtesy of TODD BROWN Visit the Photo Place

Personal touch once defined small town

It used to be that everyone knew one another in the small town of Orange. The Main Street mentality has gone by the wayside. By John B. Amos

Date published: 6/10/2006

FOUR DECADES of change can be summed up this way: We've lost the human touch. I could list a million ways that life in this small town of Orange is different now. But it all comes down to the simple fact that we're less personal in our dealings with one another. To be fair, it's not just Orange that has suffered this change. Everything everywhere feels more disconnected and alien to me. Life today is simply less neighborly.

I suppose, if we wanted to lay blame, we could start with the "disappearing Main Street" phenomenon. Downtown Orange during the mid-1960s sounds like something from another world. In my youth, Main Street boasted two department stores, three drugstores with lunch counters, a men's clothing shop, two furniture stores, a stationer, a grocer that made home deliveries, a butcher shop, a jeweler, an optometrist, two hardware stores, a Five and Dime, a movie theater, two banks, two pool halls, a service station, a train depot and a liquor store.

These businesses were all owned or operated by local folks. The people who sat next to you in church were the same people who doctored your kids, sold you your washing machine, filled your gas tank and offered your teenage children summer jobs. When you shopped, you weren't just getting the stuff you needed; you also were visiting neighbors.

When I was a kid, the great Saturday pastime was collecting bottles. We'd spend the morning rummaging around the neighborhood looking for glass soda bottles to cash in for 2 cents apiece. It took a full morning's work and a wagonload of bottles to yield enough cash to buy a decent amount of penny candy.

Around noon, we'd roll the wagon through the doors of the Safeway, right up to the manager's window. We'd unload the bottles, collect the cash and then hightail it to the Frozen Custard store on Madison Road, where we'd spend every cent on Pixie Stix, Peanut Butter Logs and Mary Janes.

Remarkable as it sounds now, we weren't a bother to anyone. The Safeway manager knew us, and he knew our parents. He valued and rewarded our resourcefulness. Can you imagine such a scenario in today's supermarket?

Follow us on

Date published: 6/10/2006