But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
- Ezra 3:12-13
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
- Hebrews 13:8
Some might wonder what a photo of cheese has to do with “memory lane” but stick with me.
My sister had two memorial services for her husband after he passed away. He worked and lived in one county, but they went to church in the neighboring county. Thus, if you could not make it to one memorial service, you could make it to the other. Of course, family made it to both. The first venue was where I was born and raised. The second venue was where I lived three years, from 13 to 16 years of age.
With both trips from the Memphis, TN area to Mississippi, we had to be there early since my grandson was playing the bagpipes. He had to warm up the pipes and change clothes, mostly before most of the others arrived. But then, I calculated delays in the trip, stops for gas or going to the restroom, etc. But each day, once we started, the three children fell asleep in the back seat. Thus, we got there very early each time.
The first time, when we were at my old home town, I drove past where the house of my birth used to be and my grandparent’s home next door used to be. I drove right past without noticing. I turned around and nearly had to count houses until I noticed the old smokehouse in the field behind a huge house with two giant magnolia trees in the front yard. There had been dogwood trees where those magnolia trees were. It is hard to believe that freshly planted trees had grown to 30-40 ft tall since I had seen the place. The last I saw of the place was when Bob Saget hosted America’s funniest videos. He started the show by being handed a rope. He was told to pull on the rope. Then, the video started with a boy pulling on the rope and my mother’s home, where she was born, crumbled to the ground. The video did not show the bulldozer pushing from the other side of the house.
So, with that disappointment, we went to the courthouse square. I showed them where my mother’s father had his office, ex veteran’s administrator, in the courthouse. I used to “borrow” a nickel. I would go to the cold drink machine next to the entrance that was near the square. I had to put in the nickel and turn a crank for the drink to be released, a 6.5 ounce hourglass shaped bottle. I was so little in those days that I had a hard time pulling the crank. But PawPaw let me go to his office after school to do my homework because he knew I was sit there and be quiet and do my homework. The soft drink was the reward.
I showed them three different buildings that had been the library, the new high school, the old high school, now the middle school. They were far from impressed, but I kept looking at storefronts and new buildings, remembering the old buildings from 55 years ago.
The next day, we went to Tupelo, MS. The church where my sister is still a member wasn’t there when we lived there. It was built six years later, and there have been huge changes to the church since then, but it was on the same road that we always took to enter our neighborhood from the back side.
When I saw Harrison street, I knew where I had to go. After the service, we drove a half block to Harrison Street and then to the other end of the street where it dead ended into Van Buren Street. My son was with us this second time and he asked, “Dad, where is the house where you lived?”
I turned right on Van Buren and drove past an empty lot and pointed to the left. Odd that he asked when we were right there at the house. I turned right in front of the house and drove down Taylor street. Taylor street was where I took my nephew on Trick or Treat one year. It was the only time that I ever went Trick or Treating, when I was growing up, mostly living on a farm. One woman had pity on me and let me have a candy bar. Otherwise, it was all for the boy who had just turned two, if my memory is okay on that one.
We did not go to Gloster Street to see what had changed. The hospital was still there but it was about three times the size that it was when we lived there. Instead, we went down the Natchez Trace Parkway, the way my Dad and I went when we lived in Tupelo. Along the parkway, a two-lane scenic route from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN (with some gaps), we passed by the high school that I never attended. Tupelo high school was walking distance from my home in the old days. Now it was miles out of town and trees obscured the high school. Trees that had not even been planted 15 years before when my wife and I drove that direction to go an outlet mall where she loved getting her underwear.
In the old days, my Dad and I would go to a little town, not on the map, named Pontocola. There was a general store there that had hoop cheese. After we worked all day on Saturday fixing something on my grandparent’s home, Dad would stop at the general store in Pontocola and get a half pound of hoop cheese.
The label from Wisconsin says that it is Red Hoop Cheddar. It tastes a little different than the sharp cheddar in the stores virtually everywhere. And I have been to cheese shops in Wisconsin and I could not find it. I bought the cheese in the photo from the warehouse store in Memphis, TN. The warehouse store of the same company did not have Hoop cheese in Nashville, TN. It must be a special treat for people in Memphis and northern Mississippi.
But what I remember of the store were the friendly people who knew us by name. The hoop cheese was not in a refrigerator. They had an old ice box that had a special top, a round wooden cake cover. That was lifted off to reveal a red wax round of red hoop cheddar cheese. Dad would get whatever they thought was close to a half pound. The cheese was at room temperature, and the flavor was much better when at room temperature. We would say our goodbyes, usually with a discussion on whether we did masonry work, carpentry, or merely painted a room or two. They knew us because my Dad’s mother had been their teacher in the one room school house in Troy, MS, which might be on some maps.
My Dad had the sharpest knife known to man, but that cheese was so soft at room temperature, you hardly needed to cut it, but the pound would be eaten by the time we got home and I swore an oath that I would make no hint that my appetite was spoiled when supper was served.
But as we made the turn in the road, I saw “Welcome to Pontocola” painted on the sidewall of the old store, now defunct. If the building was in town, it would have been condemned and bulldozed to the ground. It was so rotten that it seemed a medium strength wind could blow it over.
I thought of what the ancient philosopher Heraclitus said. ”You can’t go home again. Your childhood is lost. The friends of your youth are gone. Your present is slipping away from you. Nothing is ever the same.” (Donald Palmer, Looking at Philosophy, The Unbearable Heaviness of Philosophy Made Lighter)
MY Dad has been gone for about fifteen years, my wife for about two. While fifteen years ago, only two from our graduating class had passed, that number is more than doubled now. Too many things on my trip down memory lane were not just different, but unrecognizable.
The Scripture from Ezra is when the foundation of the new temple (Zerubbabel’s temple) was dedicated, but the people who had seen the splendor of Solomon’s temple wept out loud. You could not go back home and recapture what was lost.
You may not be able to return to your childhood. Everything has changed. But God never changes, yet it seems Heaven does change. Jesus said He was going back to prepare mansions for each of us. I guess, each time a sinner comes to faith in Jesus, the angels sing, and Jesus pulls out the blueprints for the next mansion.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
Leave a comment