Imagine a day when if you wanted to ask a girl out on a date, you had to take her to school in a horse and buggy every day. And then back home every afternoon.
Or when part of living by the railroad tracks meant you had to hang a lantern on a bridge every night as a small boy. Then on the following morning, you had to wake up at dawn, go get the lamp, clean it and hang it up again.
These are only a few of the parable-like stories retired Southern Adventist University professor Jon Green shares with groups of seniors or interested friends.
“I got to taking groups of seniors around to places [to talk to them about history in general] but then they asked me if I could tell them about Collegedale,” he said. “I taught in the school of education and psychology … and that makes me want to research.”
Green has lived in the area for 23 years, but it took some work and patience to find these stories and form them together for a history of Collegedale, he said. What he found by talking to longtime residents and finding historical places and cemeteries were stories of time past.