Letter to the Editor

You are still loved, Blytheville

Saturday, April 2, 2011

To the editor:

Last week, I walked down Memory Lane along with my daughter, Cyndi, and attempted to piece together my childhood growing up within your confines.

Sadly, I hardly recognized you.

Gone was a straight-line Main Street. Closed were the stores I so loved: Lads & Lassies, Ole Hickory, the Ritz Theatre and my daddy's employer, Hester Plumbing. Buildings were missing, including the aforementioned Ole Hickory and Hester's. My house was still on your Northeast Parkway. I could barely recognize it, but I knew where each of my neighbors lived and have even contacted some of them this week via Facebook.

"The Trees" on Walker were gone; houses now are constructed where I spent many beautiful Blytheville afternoons and weekends with wonderful friends. Thankfully, the powers that be at Memorial Cemetery have maintained my brother Bobby's gravesite; the headstone doesn't look 50 years old! I can't thank them enough for taking care of him.

Your schools that housed my hopes and dreams are gone, replaced by wonderful new incubators for the hopes and dreams of the children who call you home now.

Though I see some progress, I see sadness. It was almost pervasive everywhere I went -- restaurants, stores, hotel, convenience stores. What happened to you? Where are all my friends? I met no one I knew, NO ONE. Where is the Blytheville I hold so dear in my heart?

Please ask your citizens to embrace you and to show their love for you with their efforts to revitalize the Blytheville I remember, not as I remember it, but as I know it should be. I'll always remember you as you were when I left at the age of 15. I'm just sorry I wasn't around to graduate with my class of 1965.

You are still loved, Blytheville. I will always remember how you nourished and encouraged me and filled me with the dreams of the young. Thank you.

Jan Peacock, nee Janis Neaves
Starkville, Miss.