50+ Lifestyles

Just Saying…

By Q.C. Jones

Reunion Reveries and the Ringing of the Courthouse Clock

There’s something about returning to your hometown that plays tricks with both time and the human heart. Maybe it’s the smell of rain on old sidewalks or the courthouse clock still chiming every quarter hour just as it did back when Eisenhower was president and I was a boy on a rusty Schwinn. Whatever the cause, this trip home for a class reunion stirred up a cocktail of nostalgia, humor, and a few long-buried questions finally answered.

As I rolled into town, I instinctively slowed near the square. The old courthouse stood proud, as if it had been waiting for us to come back and admit how much we missed it. At precisely six o’clock, its bell tolled through the evening air — one of those deep, confident chimes that announces time not just to mark it, but to remind you it’s still winning. Each ring echoed across the same streets where we once circled the block in my dad’s pickup, waving at friends who were doing the same thing in their parent’s Chevy. The circle game, teenage edition.

From there, I took the scenic route through the park. The baseball diamonds were smaller than I remembered, either the fences had moved closer or my sense of scale had expanded with age. This was the field where I learned two great truths: one, that a well-hit ball can make a boy believe in miracles, and two, that catching one with your face hurts like the devil.

Every reunion demands at least one trip to the cemetery. It’s a pilgrimage of sorts, a quiet roll call of people who shaped us. The family plot sits on the front row of the tombstones near a statue dedicated to the miners who labored underground to create the world I live today. My grand-parents, my parents are there proving that point that John Steinbeck called “my blood is in the soil” of this special place. The stillness has a way of reminding me how lucky I was to have come from such good stock and how fragile that continuity really is.

Driving away, I detoured past the house where my childhood friend Fletch lived. It’s been fifty years since we last shared a Coke or an illicit beer on his porch, talked baseball and big plans. He’s been gone a long while now, but as I passed, I swear I could almost see the two of us sitting there again. Funny thing: time doesn’t wait, but memories do.

Lunch that afternoon was at the only place that could handle a proper hometown visit, Bill’s Toasty Shop. The place has been flipping burgers and burning toast since Calvin Coolidge was president, and it looks like the only things that have changed are the price of a cheeseburger. The place was packed with a slice of small-town humanity, their jokes more off color than the ancient plastic walls. The smell of grilled onions and nostalgia was intoxicating. Someone pointed out that in just seven years, Bill’s will turn one hundred. That means it’s been open for every one of our lives and half of our parents’ lives. There’s something comforting in knowing the world still has a few greasy spoons that refuse to modernize.

As the evening wore on, the conversation turned to the mysteries of our youth; the unspoken crushes, the prom-night pairings, the whispered rumors that time had never quite confirmed or denied. Over slices of chips and salsa, we learned the truth behind several half-century-old questions. The mysterious disappearance of a certain football player’s sports coat? It was hidden in a cornfield after a beer inspired joyride that ended in an unfortunate meeting with a ditch.

Somewhere between last call and the parking lot, I realized that reunions aren’t about rehashing glory days —they’re about reweaving the threads of who we were with who we’ve become. We came to remember, but we stayed to connect the dots between the people we used to be and the ones who survived to tell the stories.

When I left town the next morning, I stopped again by the courthouse square. The bell rang out, just as it had the evening before. It sounded the same, yet completely different. Maybe it was the knowledge that there are fewer reunions ahead than behind, or maybe it was just the gentle hum of gratitude that comes from realizing how rare it is to have a place, and a people, worth coming home to.

As I pulled onto the highway, I caught a final glimpse of the courthouse clock in my rearview mirror. Somewhere inside, that old bell was probably still swinging. I smiled and whispered to myself, “Ring on, old friend. I’ll be back.”

It was a blast seeing all my “long time” friends. Just Saying…QC Jones