Recently I watched a TV program showing life in most suburbs as disconnected, lacking a sense of community.

It showed suburbanites tied to cars rather than neighbors, needing transportation for every activity from

school to shopping to social events. The camera panned neighborhoods empty during the day with parents

working in distant locales, children in daycare or school. The suburban house becomes a base from which

people move into their real lives at a distance.

What a contrast to my childhood in the ‘30s and ‘40s. I grew up in Bluff City, Tennessee — 6 miles from

Hickory Tree, 5 miles from Chinquapin Grove and 8 miles from Piney Flats. So when I was young I thought

of Bluff City as nowhere and longed for the bright lights of Kingsport or Johnson City or Bristol. But

listening to the analysis of modern suburban life gave me an opportunity to reflect on the value of a youth

in a small town.

I was next-to-the-youngest of six children born to James and Melissa Carrier with four half-brothers and

sisters. At 18 mama had married a widower 13 years older with four children. Our full house grew even fuller

when my grandfather came to live with us and share a room with my brother and me. The whole family also

shared a single bathroom. Talk about planning. But the close quarters created remarkably little tension.

Our house was the hub of a life bounded by school and church and friends. Churches were spiritual and

social centers, attendance mandatory — Sunday morning and evening services because our preacher was

preaching at two other churches. Then mama would haul us to the Baptist church as well as occasional

afternoons to the black church. I gained a great appreciation for gospel music and spirituality.

In Bluff City money was a thing you saw little of but didn’t miss. There weren’t any supermarkets. You had

a hardware store and general store together. In addition, the Harkleroad brothers ran a farm store and meat

market. My dad had started in the grocery business when he was married, but gave up during the Great

Depression of the 1930s, depressed himself over the people that owed him money. He then went out to work

as a cutter, a butcher, a farmer, a house painter and a plumber — he did almost anything to make a living.

We had a cash crop of tobacco every year. (When I was on the Universal Corp. board I was the only person

who had actually worked tobacco.) All of us at home worked tobacco, a labor-intensive business of planting

and hoeing, bugging and topping and suckering, cutting and hanging, handing off and taking to the market

for four- or five hundred bucks. Then daddy would pay off some debts and buy a few things for the house.

We grew everything that Mama cooked and then canned on the coal stove. We kept potatoes in the root

cellar, had a cow for milk, chickens for eggs, and hogs provided the bacon, hams, fatback, tenderloin and lard

for cooking. We lived like mountain people, my daddy’s world probably closer to Julius Caesar’s than today.

I don’t know that I ever thought about money, having it or not having it. I never owned a bicycle, but had

some skates. The gathering place outside of church was Banty’s Confectionery. It had a jukebox and pinball

machine, and offered hotdogs, hamburgers, potato chips — no French fries — toasted cheese sandwiches,

ice cream cones, milkshakes, Grapettes and Nabs. After basketball games, Coach Charles Fleming would give

us 30 cents for an after-game snack. We’d have a hotdog, a bag of chips and a Coke or Dr. Pepper and

think we were big shots.

You could get almost everything you needed in Bluff City. A movie theater even opened in the late ‘30s with

shows evenings, a Saturday matinee, and closed Sundays. I saw “Gone with the Wind” and “Sgt. York” and

held hands with a girl for the first time there. When she got a new boyfriend it didn’t break my heart but it

sure put a cramp in my confidence.

Daddy was mayor at one time and the volunteer fire department consisted mainly of him and my brothers.

My Aunt Ethel was telephone operator. I don’t think anyone knew a number. They’d just call and say,

“Ethel, ring Jim, please.”

Mama always knew where we were and I never came home in my life that she was there without her first

question, “What have you been into now?” The question persisted until she died at 88. And I knew I better

not be “in” anything, not because she would physically punish me, but because disappointing her would hurt

beyond a spanking. So I was very careful not to get caught. Easier said than done in a small town.

Every adult was an “aunt” or “uncle,” if not by blood or marriage, by respect. And related or not, those aunts

and uncles limited venues to get into trouble. You knew “Aunt Verta,” not my real aunt, and “Uncle Fred,” not

my real uncle, and Uncle Arthur — all of them were there to notify your mother if you got out of line. Their

watching and caring framed your values. I’m not sure we had any real philosophical discussions about the

world but we knew about honesty. We were not going to steal from Uncle Ryden’s store and we knew that

we were not going to slip into the movie or get out of paying Banty for hamburgers or a hotdog.

And we understood to respect older people and to look after them. Even when we played Halloween pranks,

turning over outdoor toilets, we didn’t try to damage anything. We just turned the outhouses over so family

members could easily set them back up. They’d be in a rush the next morning.

The high school grounds backed to my yard, the baseball field the only thing separating me from the building

where I attended classes. I spent hours on that field building friendships and chasing the same dreams most

boys have to make it to the Major Leagues. The dream didn’t last, the friendships did. And 10 minutes away

ran the Holston River for swimming and fishing.

I was not a good student. I was a basketball and baseball player and a smart alec. It wasn’t that I did anything

wrong, never stole or cheated, just didn’t study a lot. There wasn’t a heck of a lot of motivation to study. Few

people went to college — only six in my class. And I had projected the reputation of not being a good student

that I had to live up to.

But when it became clear that I wouldn’t graduate with my class, my mother took a hand. She found a summer

school 8 miles away where I proceeded to drive to classes with my friends but got into classes without them.

Students came from all over the area to make up credits, mostly athletes and derelicts. I was an athlete.

Principal Anderson didn’t know me but had been told by Coach Fleming that I had a lot of good qualities and

potential. So the teachers treated me like I was somebody who had potential. I didn’t disappoint them from

that day on.

I carried a 98 in math, a 99 in English and 96 in history back to amazed teachers at Bluff City High School.

And with that I began to concentrate and went off to East Tennessee State. The years since have paid sound

dividends in different places. But I always return to touch my roots.

The town has changed, most of the stores closed. One small grocery’s emerged that wasn’t there before.

The hardware store still displays an incredible supply of materials, some collectors’ items. The movie closed,

the restaurant closed, the high school moved away and consolidated. New houses have gone up, and old

houses been torn down. But on my 50th birthday I slept in the same bed in the same front room of the house

on Cedar Street where I was born. Not many people in this day and time can say that.

Old friends remain friends. We’ll meet to swap memories of a youth that held grand times, simple times. You

never went far from home. The only trip I made was the senior trip to Washington. But when you talk about

values, about who you are and why community is so important, small-town America returns answers. A recent

survey of Americans’ satisfaction with their lives reflects this. Americans who live in small towns, especially in the

Midwest, or in close-knit neighborhoods, enjoy their lives.

In such neighborhoods, community has value in itself. When I was young, we understood that and grew from it

and interacted with each other. In Bluff City people connected and made a community.

In too many neighborhoods now those connectors seem shorted out.