Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I always enjoy coming home every year in September for Mathews Market Days. I fondly remember my younger days (in the ’70s and ’80s) running around the Court House with my friends eating funnel cakes and drinking limeades!

My grandmother, Eugenia Murray, would sit out on the front porch swing with Mrs. Frances DuVal (which is that cute “little” house next to Southwind Pizza) and watch everyone walk by. Times were easy back then, we knew everyone in the county, jobs were more secure, life in general was just a little bit slower.

We had (and still do) the watermen working sun up to sun down, the men who worked tirelessly at the NN Shipyard like my father, and many who worked at the electric company, among other prosperous jobs our little county provided. Richardson’s Drug Store was run by my Uncle Clarke and Dr. Bland Hudgins was busy keeping us all healthy. Those were the days.

Now, I have two young boys (Reid, 13 and Patrick, 1...