“Back in the Day” – A Standard We Must Be Willing To Meet Again

Lake Shore Drive, Chicago – From my early lessons in beauty and stewardship to my bench on Main Street today.

FIRST THESE THOUGHTS:

I was watching Kentucky basketball the other evening when a simple phrase, Back In The Day, slipped past the announcer and settled beside me. It lingered longer than the final buzzer, because it sounded less like sports commentary and more like an invitation to remember.

Every town has its own back in the day, not as a perfect picture frozen in time, but as a collection of footsteps on sidewalks, storefront doors opening and closing, and people who believed their daily routines mattered to the life of a place.

Back in the day, growing up in Evanston, Illinois, I never imagined that the ordinary rhythms of childhood would follow me this far into another life and another town.

I feel gratitude, not as nostalgia, but as recognition that the expectations placed around me by family, friends, and the steady presence of significant adults formed a baseline, a way of seeing the world that I carry to Main Street today.

I did not walk around naming architecture or speaking of preservation, yet the buildings were there, shaping me all the same.

I remember riding in the back seat of my parents’ car along Lake Shore Drive, gazing out at structures that stood with dignity and purpose, unaware that they were teaching me something about beauty, order, and belonging.

Sitting here on my Main Street bench, I realize that one of the gifts of preservation is recognizing what those earlier days were trying to teach me before I rushed past them.

The phrase back in the day is an acknowledgment that the places and people who raised us continue to echo forward, layer upon layer, into how we imagine the future of a street where we did not grow up, but have come to care about as our own.

SECOND – ROCKY MOUNT, NC:

A city does not find itself in difficulty overnight. What we are facing now, with the audit, a full-blown financial crisis, the uncertainty about leadership and direction, is occurring because it was allowed.

Rocky Mount has known for a long time what the audit has named. It is inexplicable that the same names accused of working the system, have been reelected to continue their personal agendas. This includes hiring City Manager’s with dubious resumes guaranteed not to rock their boat, who in turn brought to the city others like themselves.

Today, back in the day reminds us that there was a time when things worked, when expectations were clearer, when leadership understood its responsibility, and when the life of a town was unique and worth protecting.

It is the standard we must be willing to meet again.

If Rocky Mount is to recover from its mistakes, then let’s return to what holds a city firm. A good sign: there are new candidates for City Council declaring early. If it means the State comes in to run things for a while, so be it.

I’ll leave you with an old country song I want to sing to you.

“Detour, there’s a muddy road ahead
Detour, paid no mind to what it said
Detour, oh these bitter things I find
Should have read that detour sign”

The song is applicable to Rocky Mount. The signs have been clear, re-direction available, but not taken. Leadership highjacked.

There is a lot of talk about Should-a, could-a, would-a….but there is also a tremendous surge from the citizens of Rocky Mount speaking out with reasoned comments that have raised a flag up the poll that says, CHANGE. You gotta love that prospect.

This blog post is dedicated to those who grew up in Rocky Mount, NC Who rode their bicycles everywhere, who played with the neighbor kids until the street lights came on, who watched the fireflies in the shrubbery, who went downtown with their grandmothers to pick up a prescription, who wore their high school letter jackets, who remember their first kiss. -Stepheny