Places of the Heart

Sometime during our Navy years my mother wrote me that the Dixie-Sherman Hotel had been demolished. Imploded may be the word. Holes drilled strategically all over the structure, dynamite in the holes, wires to a trigger mechanism and, at the exact time, a shudder, a puff, a momentary pause, then collapse inward on itself leaving little mess in streets around. Seems to me my mother said it was scheduled and she and my father went down front to the beach and watched it happen.

It was a landmark. Matter of fact, it was the landmark. Some nine or ten stories, visible from about anywhere on the Bay. There are reasons for pulling down old structures. They may make economic sense, but they never satisfy the heart. The Dixie-Sherman was so. Kiwanis luncheons as the Key Club rep throughout my Bay High years, Rotary with my father-in-law Urban Peters early in my Navy years and before they moved to dry Arizona for his emphysema. The Junior-Senior Prom during Bay High years, and the Christmas Ball happened this season, just about now, chilly evenings -- which is what stirred memories this morning. Sometimes the ball was at The Armory but always best, classier at the Dixie-Sherman. My mother selected camellias from the yard and made Linda’s corsage. Sometimes red. Pink Perfection. White Empress. Depended on the color of her gown. 

The Dixie-Sherman was more than a building, it was a place of the heart. 

So was Bay High School. God help us, the idiocies of progress. 

And Cove School, saved to become the Bill Lloyd Building of Holy Nativity Episcopal School.   

Places of the Heart. People of the Heart.

Tom in +Time