Wednesday, May 30, 2001
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Wednesday, May 30, 2001 |
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Jim and Hank - Both in the history books By SALLIE
SATTERTHWAITE History sometimes goes astray when filtered through the memory of those who've "been there, done that," and occasionally an error gets by. No harm done, for the most part. Trouble is, when small inaccuracies find their way to print, they have a way of becoming part of the public record and then get picked up and repeated until they are themselves regarded as history. Without doubt, I've contributed to such errata myself, so I offer most gently the following, to correct a misstatement that appeared in a Peachtree Citizen Review several weeks ago. Before there was ever a Peachtree City in western Fayette, there was the occasional local general store, but nothing remotely resembling what we think of today as a comprehensive supermarket. When we moved here in the summer of 1971, my dear neighbor Tutt Cawthorne (now Larsen) and I carpooled to go shopping for a week's worth of groceries at a time all the way to an A & P store on U.S. Highway 27 in Fairburn. We did have, by then, one little grocery store, Dixieland, good for bread and milk and a few staples, at the west end of Willowbend Shopping Center. Willow Road ran to the state highway between Dixieland and Hanchey's Gulf station; it was later cut off and rerouted into Willowbend near Pebblepocket Pool. Jack Walls' laundromat and Paul Sikes' Pak-A-Chic were in the middle of the strip, and at the east end was the post office (although just now my memory fails to explain why Dixieland was already open in 1971, but the post office was still at the east end of the old city hall building). That "center," long-since renovated, is the strip of blue-roofed buildings at Willowbend Road and Ga. Highway 54. Dixieland's location is now an office, two stories high. Jim Hudson, who had a small food store in Tyrone, believed in Peachtree City's potential and took over Dixieland while Aberdeen Village Center was under construction. It seemed to take forever. His son-in-law Jack Routon, now a Peachtree City firefighter/paramedic, recalls that Jim ran Dixieland from 1972 to 1974, when he finally moved into the bright, spacious Hudson's Supermarket the first and only such facility on the west side of the county. I tell you this to be sure Jim Hudson gets his due. Life was infinitely easier for all of us once that store opened. And for at least 11 years, Jim contributed to the community, supporting the many organizations and traditions that were just a-borning in my fledgling hometown then. He was known to carry a tab for customers down on their luck, although he did not suffer fools gladly. Jack and Brenda, Jim's daughter, ran the store for awhile when Jim's health failed he died in 1988 at the age of 66 and they sold it to the Tants, who ran it as A & T like their long-established store in Fayetteville. Big Star, which became the A & P and is now Harris Teeter's, certainly offered the Aberdeen store competition both in prices and diversity, but we used to say it took longer to shop at the "old" store because you couldn't drop in for a can of soup without running into at least six people with whom you had to visit. As long as I'm reminiscing, does anyone else recall the building most of us refer to as "old city hall," which stood approximately where today's municipal plaza sparkles like a diamond at the heart of town? When we first came to town, that little California-style building quartered (from east end to west) the post office; Otis Viall's insurance office; the offices of Garden Cities Development Co., PCDC's predecessor; and Floy Farr's Fayette State Bank, the only bank in town, complete with vault and a drive-through window. It's hard to believe now, but nearly every afternoon, a helicopter landed on the lawn in front of the bank, picking up the day's money (so we thought) or delivering important documents from Atlanta a then-high-tech transfer that today would be handled electronically. Now let's see. I'm doing this from memory, miles from my sources, so if I scramble history, I'll count on a reader to correct me: When the City of Peachtree City needed space, Garden Cities provided a corner in its offices, a desk and a part-time city clerk. When the bank moved into its big new building at Aberdeen, the west end of the old office strip became City Hall, vault, drive-through window and all. When the post office moved to the Willowbend location, the Police Department and, later, the 911 dispatchers got the east end of the building. When Otis moved his insurance office out, the police expanded into his space, and when Garden Cities moved to bigger digs, the city got the use of the central part of the building for a library and meeting room. I well remember City Council and other large public meetings being conducted at Peachtree City Elementary School on Wisdom Road during some period of renovation or new construction. One such meeting was taking place April 8, 1974, when Hank Aaron hit number 715 over the fence at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, creating his own moment in history. Not to mention a distraction to ours.
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