Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see,
and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein,
and ye shall find rest for your souls.
But they said, We will not walk therein. (Jeremiah 6:16 KJV)

The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places;
yea, I have a goodly heritage. (Psalm 16:6 KJV)

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost

He was an ol’ conservative Tennessee native son visiting “up North” with his niece and her family. The news of the time was the outcome of a recent movement in his niece’s Ohio River community (also conservative) to change the name of the town in which she had been raised from a child.
The uncle’s mind wandered back to the time before he was born when the first high school was built in the only hometown he’d ever known. The school had been named after a prominent attorney and politician who was instrumental in successfully helping early citizens win a court battle for the county to be founded.
The county seat of the new entity was named for this prominent Tennessean, and when almost three-quarters of a century later the first high school was built, it was named in honor of the one who, though not a citizen of the new jurisdiction himself, was prominently instrumental in the county’s creation. (Ironically, this distinguished attorney of the pre-Civil War era was a citizen of one of the counties from which part was taken to form the new county! Imagine the scorn and ridicule he must have faced for the part he played in taking land from five counties to form another.)
When the first high school was replaced within three decades, the name remained unchanged, homage continuing to be paid to the political proponent of the county’s creation. The lawyer’s portrait, painted by a prominent local artist and donated by the lawyer’s family to the county which he helped establish, transferred with the building and was prominently displayed in the second school’s library as a memorial. The uncle remembered with pride the times he’d gazed at that picture every time he had entered his favorite room of the school which provided his secondary education. What a comfort to be a young boy from a small community with such a historical legacy.
Then a third high school was built almost three-quarters of a century later. A segment of the population wanted to change the name of the high school to more generically represent the entire county. There was some opposition, but very little. The days seemed to have passed when children were named for the county’s founding hero, and surrounding areas derided the school’s sports teams because of the similarity of the first name to that of an animal.
There was weak protest to the name change, but nothing organized or petitioned. The uncle voiced his concerns to a friend of his that sat on the school committee. He learned that the issue was already decided. The uncle would have liked to have thought that non-natives spearheaded the name change, but it could not be ignored that a former elected official also sat on that committee.
Another part of the argument for the name change was that the name had always stayed with the building. The uncle never bought this, as the first high school building was not torn down for at least more than a decade after the second building was constructed. The compromise seemed to be that the second high school building was converted to a middle school, and the eminent attorney’s name did indeed remain with the first middle school established in the county’s second high school building.
At least there was no move to rename the county seat. His Northern relatives were not so lucky.
In his niece’s Northern community, there had been an uproar at the prospect of changing the township’s name. Hundreds of people had championed the cause to remain true to their historical heritage. Petitions were circulated, support groups were organized, and officials were lobbied. All in vain.
The uncle visited his niece and her husband in time to attend the final town council meeting before the new name went into effect. The former supporters who had gone down in ignominious defeat now were silenced. Only a handful, including the uncle’s family, attended this funereal gathering. The mood was similar to that of mourners watching the final clods of dirt being placed over a loved one’s grave.
The next day, the uncle, his niece and her husband visited the only remnant that would continue to proudly wear the township’s former name, the city park. The uncle’s mind wandered to the days when his now deceased brother and he had walked in this very park. Then his mind reached further back to the days when his brother had walked the East Tennessee hills of the childhood home in which he had resided before World War II, marriage and an industrial job had borne him to live the majority of his life in the now renamed Northern community.
Though his brother lived over two-thirds of his life in the North, he never forgot his Southern roots. Every year, he spent his entire vacation with the family he loved in the South and walked the golden hills of his youth in silent wonder.
Now, he walks eternal hills and will never know an address or name change again.
In the end, Dear Reader, that’s all that counts.

For what shall it profit a man,
If he shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?(Mark 8:36 KJV)

If in this life only we have hope in Christ,
We are of all men most miserable.
(1 Corinthians 15:19 KJV)

For they that say such things declare plainly
that they seek a country. (Hebrews 11:14 KJV)

ANSWER TO QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 19
Why have I and my wife been awake since June 1? WE DECIDED TO NEVER GO TO BED ANGRY
QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 20
Perhaps your smartphone, maybe your TV, but something has definitely been collecting dirt on you for years. What is it? (See next week’s article in historicunioncounty.com for the answer.)