Alive in Small Town USA; My Grandfather Survives

Pulitzer Prize winning photo from the Kent State Massacre (ROADHURST)

On May 4th of 1970, 67 rounds were fired over the course of 13 seconds into a crowd of protesting College students from the bayonet mounted rifles of American Soldiers (ROADHURST, 289-309). To many of us now this is an example of excessive force, but my Grandfather said of this, "This is what happens when you mix peace and anarchy" (Bedard). He continued with "If you're standing in the street with rocks and fire I'll shoot you to protect my family, I'll shoot you dead. I work seven days a week to make a home for my wife, for my children." (Bedard)This is a man who has a strong will to protect his family and would literally kill to protect it. My Grandfather is a conservative small town American and agree or disagree with his view of life the fact is it is men and women just like him who play and have played a major role in defining what America is today. In the wake of Vietnam, the Oil Embargo of '73, and the Kent State Massacre, how did these people live? I got a chance to sit down and speak with my grandfather about his opinions. The world is changing, always evolving (Bedard), so what was changing in the small town of Ashby, Massachusetts while the world moved?

The World as it Was

Here’s the scene; Ashby, Massachusetts, 1970. My grandfather is thirty one and has two daughters, age six and three, and a wife of thirty. Grandpa owns his own roofing business with a ware house and a work team of fifteen employees. There was never much violence in Ashby, and more often then not if someone did die it was by their own hand (Bedard).Every summer my grandfather would fine something to occupy my mother and her sister’s time. They tried summer camp, horse riding, tennis, and he would take them fishing and hunting, his defense was "The idea was to keep them busy" (Bedard). This was a time when young men who stayed in town either joined the Police Department or the Fire Department (my Grandfather himself joined the Fire Department as a volunteer), when you didn’t need a license for every job and piece of equipment, when you worked hard and partied just the same (Bedard), and when there was not an endless stream of traffic flowing though Ashby.

What Had Happened

My Grandfathers Wood Stove (Bedard)

But time can be cruel, and soon enough it was 1973 and the United Sates had angered many Mid Eastern countries in arming the Israeli army during the Yum Kippur War (Gisser and Goodwin, 95). The result was an oil embargo on the United States of America. Gas prices soared, resulting in the rise of prices on general goods that had to be transported across the country as well as oil products. These events played a very large role in the world economy, still affecting it today;"...since 1973 the functional relationship between crude oil prices and the developed macro-economies has been dramatically and fundamentally altered." (Gisser and Goodwin, 95) When that happened the times were comparable to now, as my Grandfather said “Nobody had any money around for anything, put you have to prepare for this kind of disaster. You save money when times are good and you keep saving it when times are bad, you stay self sufficient.” (Bedard) And he did stay self sufficient, he managed to keep his busy alive but unfortunately had lain off all but four people. When oil became too expensive he switched to coal and used his woodstove instead. Getting that coal and wood was a chore that would keep my mother and her sister in a constant battle to avoid.

His Life

A picture of Grandpa and one of his hunting dogs after catching two pheasants from the 70's. (Bedard)

Not only was the outside world changing how he lived, but the community itself changed. My Grandpa was once a volunteer fireman, but there’s only so much destruction he can see before he can’t take it anymore. “It’s two in the morning, twenty below, the fire whistle blows, and you know it’s a house fire. And the ass breaker is you know when you finally manage to put the fire out it’s only a matter of time until those pipes freeze. Seeing people’s homes being destroyed before their eyes, it’s heartbreaking.” (Bedard). Beyond this was the loss of a good friend of his (I was unable to get him to tell me the story but overheard it while he spoke with a local policeman when I was at work). He spoke of how a friend of his growing up always knew he wanted to be a firefighter. But not five hundred feet from the house he was raised in the front of a building collapsed on him during a fire (Bedard).

A New Age

A picture of The Ashby Market from November of '08 (Wiki)

Grandpa never though he would see the day there was no Limens left in Ashby. They were practically a clan. They were industrialists who had done a lot for the town. Of course he probably also never thought looking at the engine of his fifty six hard top Buick that someday you wouldn’t be able to see clear to the ground looking under the hood of a car. He may have been against the Vietnam War, saying “There was no good reason for us to be there, it wasn’t in our interest. Look and the French were there for twenty years and what did they get done?” (Bedard) but today he is in support of the War in the Middle East (well he is in favor of the war in Afghanistan but feels there is no reason to be in Iraq). This man has seen Zippos drug themselves to the point of being the "walking dead" (Bedard)and watched as someone’s home burned before their eyes. He sleeps with a gun next to his bed, ready to shoot any person who would put the life of his family in danger, “..and I’m not aiming for their ankles.” (Bedard) he said in regards to the threat of a home invasion. Beyond this the town he lives in still has no more than one traffic light. The Ashby Market has been there since before the great depression. His own father was once the owner of it. The point is this is the quintessential small town holding its ground against the change of the 1970’s. Once again this small town ethic is being challenged by the world with the rise of the tea party. Agree or disagree with their politics what they represent is a small town small government mentality that is struggling to adapt in a new world.

The Conclusion

Everything is always changing, evolving really (Bedard). In the seventies Ashby, and my Grandfather, survived with their small town ethics intact. If you are a trusted businessman in Ashby and know Bill (the Ashby Market owner) well enough you can open a charge account for the store. In fact, earlier this year I drove a little too fast through the town and somebody called my grandmother to tell her! The thing is my Grandpa constantly compared the economy and the youth mentality of the seventies to that of now. So the question I raise is; will Ashby make it through one more generation of change? I think there’s a good chance we have not seen the last of small town USA.

Work Cited

Bedard, Robert. Personal Interview by Samuel Reynolds. 30 April 2011. 3 May 2011.

Gisser , Micha , and Thomas Goodwin. "Crude Oil and the Macroeconomy: Tests of Some Popular Notions."Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 18.1 (1986): 1-9. Web. 8 May 2011. .

ROADHURST, CHRISTOPHER J. "We Didn't Fire a Shot, We Didn't Burn a Building": The Student Reaction at North Carolina State University to the Kent State Shootings, May 1970." North Carolina Historical Review 87.3 (2010): 283-309. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 3 May 2011.

"The Ashby Market, MA." Wikipedia. Web. 8 May 2011. .