"MARION, A STEP BACK IN TIME"
by Laurel
The first time I ever saw Marion, was in April 1969.
My husband had just gotten a job with the U.S. Army Corps
of
Engineers, and we made the trip from Lexington to Marion
on a Friday
morning to look for a place to live. He was to
report to work in a
week at the now-defunct Dam , so the decision that would
change our
lives forever was made in a very short time. We
had only been married
for four months and we were dirt-poor, to say the least.
Our trip was
made with mixed feelings -- both of us were from large
cities (Los
Angeles and Chicago) -- and I really didn't know if I
was up to living
in such a small community. All I knew was that
Marion was somewhere
in western Kentucky and that there were no really big
towns nearby.
As we sped down the Western Kentucky Parkway in
our 1967 Mustang,
we were in awe as the scenery unfolded before our eyes.
Mile after
mile we noticed that the land looked different from that
around
Lexington. The hills were not as high, the trees
looked a little
different, and the farms were not as neat as those back
East. The
closer we got to Princeton, the more uneasy I got.
There was NOTHING
in this part of the country, and I began to feel unhappy
and very
homesick.
We finally exited the Parkway and made the turn
onto Highway 91.
Our new home lay just ahead a short 25 miles. The
closer we got to
Marion the more upset I became. Everything looked
run-down and not
very hospitable. I wanted to see nice homes with
neat, manicured
lawns, but instead we saw small frame houses, some with
yards full of
junk. I was heartbroken and thought that I would
never be able to
last out here amongst the "heathens." At last we
approached Marion,
and it was as if we had driven into a time warp.
The town looked as
if time had stood still for the past thirty years.
I was not
impressed.
Downtown consisted of about two blocks of stores
-- most looked
as if the light of day had not entered their windows
in a century --
and there were just two stoplights. There was the
courthouse in the
center of town, neat and surrounded by trees, and there
was the
newspaper office, our first destination. After
a day of searching,
and with a little help from a few good souls, we finally
found a house
for rent that we could afford. It was a hundred-year-old
monstrosity
with no heat, 12-foot ceilings, and a huge, over-grown
yard. We
didn't even have furniture let alone a lawnmower, but
fools that we
were, we rented it anyway.
The step back in time that we made all those years
ago was not as
traumatic as we originally thought. The community
has grown up over
the years, and like most towns around the country, we
can brag that
we, too, have a Pizza Hut. In a sense, though,
time has stood still
here and all you have to do is drive about fifteen miles
north of here
to see The Land That Time Forgot. The Amish remind
us of a more
simple way of life, and that is really not so bad.
Does this city
slicker regret moving to such a backward hick place?
No way! We have
raised our two children here, we both have good jobs,
own our own
home, and are not afraid to leave our house and car unlocked.
Some of
the houses still look run down, and some of the yards
are still
littered with junk, but that is not what makes a town
home.