Ain't we got fun....

“In the mornin’....in the evenin’... “

We’ve been taking longer walks the last few days....the weather is really nice here.....we’ve had a cooler than normal summer ‘n it looks like it’s gonna continue this fall....Ol Fair Oaks looks like a genuine village ‘n since most people t’day ain’t got a clue what a ‘real’ village should look like, it’ll do....I guess it’s actually a real village in t’days world.....the TWENTYFIRST CENTURY OH MY GAWD!....how the world has changed......
When I was a boy in that long, long ago time, it was the ‘Steam Age’....steamboats ‘n steam trains.....magnificent creations they were too, billowing great clouds of white cloudy steam, monster engines huge ‘n domineering, towing long, coal-laden trains as they roared by the little village where I lived....’n the haunting whistles as they passed live on in memories of yesterday.....the steamboats were universally white with different colored trim ‘n individually named....and whether they pushed barges up the river ‘n down or whether they were Showboats equipped with calliopes didn’t matter....they all had the whistles capable of stirring the blood of small boys ‘n old men ev’rywhere...
Villages back then consisted almost exclusively of homes.....oh, there might be the occasional small store tucked away, usually run by someone trying to supplement a too-small ‘old age’ pension....folks t’day don’t remember ‘old age’ pensions....we all have social security t’day ‘n that’s an accepted fact.....’n it don’t matter now that we all participated in social security under government duress but that’s another story....
If you wanted to shop for the necessaries, food, clothing, etcetera.....you had to go to ‘town’....that’s where all the stores were located.....’n most people walked or rode a bus...(there were still some that went by horse 'n wagon, well maybe mule ‘n wagon) ‘Course, there were a lucky few who had cars, but it really made no difference, if you wanted to buy whatever you needed, you had to go to town ‘cause that’s where the stores were....And that was true ‘til after World War II when America began to see the growth of suburbia and the downtowns began to die....
Anyway, when Millyrose ‘n I wandered out to sunny California back in the halcyon sixties, Fair Oaks wasn't exactly a village, it was a thriving litte town with a couple blocks of business in their downtown, all wrapped around Plaza Park....'n, of course, adjacent housing.....There was a post office, a school, a grocery store, a bank, a drugstore ‘n a hardware store....a movie house, a couple barbershops, a small clothing store... a library with some stone anteaters out front...a couple doctors, a dentist, a bar (still here ‘n still thriving) ‘n a cafe. There was also an olive factory. It was almost but not quite, a small city. But when we got here, It was a grown-up village on the outskirts of Sacramento...
Now we're a colorful little village, durn near quaint....Oh, we still have some business’ and a number of ‘Antique Stores’....in the old days, we called ‘em second-hand stores but that was another day 'n age....
We still have Plaza Park, populated mostly by a large number of wild chickens....We have almost quaint signs with a picture of a chicken 'n we have a couple chicken-fests 'cuz "They're so cute!" I have to keep the poodle-dogger ‘n Willie on (relatively) short leashes while walking them around the park ‘cuz dogs chasing chickens seems to upset some folk....still, it’s very pleasant this year just to stroll around Ol Fair Oaks....