So I’m a bit behind the times.
There’s something about the end of a year and the start of another that gets us in a reflective mood.
When I get my hair cut, the topic of “What’s new with the Historical Society?” usually accounts for at least a portion of the conversation during bi-monthly visits to my favorite tonsorial artist. Jeff, who cuts my hair, can trace his family tree back several generations and track their moves from Palmyra, to Riverton, and finally to Riverside.
He showed me this photo of his father and some friends taken many years ago on Cinnaminson Street in Riverton. An arrow on the photo and caption on the back identifies Jack, Jeff’s dad, but with both of Jeff’s parents now passed away, which of the others is which is unclear. I’m taking suggestions since Jeff is expecting that someone may know of his dad’s childhood chums.
Perhaps while kids are still off from school and as friends and family gather over this holiday break, conversations may drift to stories of long ago when the kids were little and parents and grandparents were young. Younger ones inevitably inquire about what life was like when you were their age.
You might want to try a virtual family visit to our recent Museum for a Day to show youngsters about earlier times in Riverton and to help the adults with some visual aids to accompany their “Good Ol’ Days” soliloquies.
Mrs. Mary Yearly Flanagan again shares here some of her grandfather’s photos which not only chronicle the progress of the Yearly Clan, but also help illustrate some aspects of everyday life in early 20th century Riverton.
Consider recording some of those moments with that new camera, smartphone, iPhone, iPad, a Fisher-Price camera, anything really, but capture them while you can because you sure can’t go back and get them later. You’ll look back on them years from now and wonder where all the time went. I can’t be the only senior for whom it seems that time has actually accelerated exponentially with each passing decade.
This website has plenty of images, text, and even some video clips which might help show the current generation how former generations lived, worked, played, and helped make Riverton the town that they have today. Photos from a previous Joseph Yearly Photo Gallery, your own family album, other vintage images, or a screening of Glimpses of Palmyra and Riverton in the 1930s or The Romance of Riverton, will also serve the purpose to illustrate the times of earlier generations.
The result of such an epic Riverton Retrospective may just leave everyone thinking, “You know what? These are the good old days.”
Mark them well, as we warp-speed into 2012. Please pause and comment on your own good old days, whenever they may be. – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor
