In July of 1999, after decades of being away I went back to Mound to
fulfill a promise I had made in my youth. Before I left my state of
residence for Minnesota and my "home town" of Mound, I created this site.
I had no idea what I would put here, but I knew it would be about the place
I was going to... Mound ... at least Mound as I had known it.
To savor this place I once knew so well, I walked everywhere so that I could
stop and move as I chose and could "feel" the place, as well as see every
nuance of it, something not possible from a car. When I first arrived
it felt as though I had never left, as if I had been there only days before,
no time had past. Ironically it was the old Mound I returned to as if
a traveler through time. At first I didn't notice how much it had been altered
by the decades, as I was too immersed in seeing the Mound I knew.
I walked down the highways, streets and lanes remembering each building and
landmark as it had been before I left. My contemplations were conspicuous
to observers as I was continually stopping to study different objects
as insignificant as an old rock or tree, in Rip Van Winklian fashion.
I didn't see the vacant lot, I saw a friend's house with her smiling
at me from the doorway. I didn't see the old run down building,
but rather the thriving business it had been. Not the new housing project, but
the farmer in his field filled with freshly formed bales of hay, the alfalfa
scent still in the summer air. I could hear the distant bellowing of a phantom
bull, and soon after, the din of stamping machines blocks away from the now
silent Tonka plant.
I had returned to the Mound I knew, the Mound I was part of. I soon came to
the unpleasant realization that it wasn't actually there, it was an apparition
that only I could see. It was as though a part of me had been ripped away.
In the weeks that followed I rediscovered
Mound. Much of the old Mound is still there but is vanishing rapidly. I can't
bring the old town back but I, with your help, can maybe do something to
prevent our Mound, and the lives of it's former citizens, from being totally
forgotten.
Major changes such as the Mound Visions project were about to occur so by
being faithful to my promise made long ago I had returned in time to
get a "last look" at many old landmarks including the old Mound High School,
now I can share those with all of you who care to see them.
I will be adding more items periodically.
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