MILTONville: Meeting the Mayor

(Continued from last post....   )

Less than a week went by after I wrote to the mayor of Milton about Mr. Dorris White wanting to see him again, and I received two emails back from Joe Lockwood. The first said just three words, "Save your money."  Very funny, so the mayor has a sense of humor.

Another day went by and he wrote that I could go and get my Coca-Cola. So many thanks to Joe for that and I knew this was the beginning of much more than repaying a bet.

I went over and visited with Dorris and Hazel White and sat on their front porch in weathered white wooden rocking chairs sipping our sodas. We talked for a long time and they continued telling me their story. They had been rocking on that porch for so many years.

Before I left the White's, I asked them this question: What is the one thing you most want to tell people, like me who have moved here, about what it was like growing up in Milton.

Mr. White's answer was emphatically this: "Wave to your neighbor as you go by. All you new people need to know this is what we do here."

You could see the sadness in his eyes. No one was waving back anymore as they sat on their porch watching all these people go by, hundreds of them. I had to tell everyone what I heard firsthand. And they wanted to tell me much more because I was so interested in listening. And learning about the things that are at risk of disappearing altogether.

Waving to your "neighbors" could be a thing of the past. Not just a wave to those you recognize but to all those you don't.

When I first moved to Milton, I had never experienced waving to people as you drive by, like on Freemanville Road when someone is mowing and they look up and wave hello.  You saw that all the time.  No more. They stopped waving to us because no one waved back.

I thought I would try a social experiment a couple of years at Dorris and Hazel's house. When my children were with me visiting, we would allow them to stand on this big rock in their front yard facing the road. The kids made up a name for the game, Sweet or Sour. Do you know that at most only 10 out of at least 80 people who visibly looked straight at them waved back, to little girls just waving to them and saying hello, on a "country" road?  I understood what they were talking about. How could we keep that sweet custom alive in Milton?

I had to try something so I started writing down what most all the locals were telling me, no one waves anymore. I met Abbe Laboda in the parking lot at Summit Hill Elementary the first day of school. As usual, I brought up my conccern for preserving the soul of this place by listening to the folks like the White's and retelling their stories. Abbe said she enjoyed writing. She loves photography also. Another sign to me that "the time is now".

We didn't wait to work anything out, we just did it. I had this intense feeling that we absolutely could not wait for the perfect moment, or equipment, or someone who knew what they were doing. We just had to push play. A local paper published our first story of three written as editorials, ... And MILTONville had its first oral history project! To be continued.... In the meantime, check this out.