IRH - The best friend I never met

This section is to honor the works of Russ Lancaster who started the “I Remember Hamlet” web site years ago. Without his pioneering the web at that time we might not have gathered all these memories of our Hamlet, NC. We thank you Russ for what you started in 1996, may you Rest in Peace. Russ was kind enough to let me download his web site before he took it down. Thank you Russ.
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David
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IRH - The best friend I never met

Post by David »

The best friend I never met
(or did I?)
Hamlet NC, 1948-53
by: Russ Lancaster


As most of you know, I was born in Hamlet in 1941 and lived there until I graduated Hamlet High School in 1959. The years beyond that are well chronicled in other stories on this site.

There was another kid in Hamlet during a five year span between 1948 and 1953 that I should have known. My first awareness of him however didn't occur until late in 1999. His name is Bruce Osburn.

Being a kid in Hamlet between 1948 and 1953 was a special thing though we may not have realized it way back then. Time has a strange way of changing one's views on life. In those years and those days, being a year older or younger than other kids around you meant very little except during the school year. Other times, age didn't matter. However, a two or three year difference in ages mattered greatly. Kids mostly kept company with kids their own age back then, at least outside family settings.

Bruce and I were two to three years apart in age and that is one reason I have no memory of him in my childhood years. More importantly, we lived totally different lives. He was a country boy, I was a city boy. That too kept kids from knowing one another.

You see, owning a car was not as wide spread as you might think in those years. If you are around my age, you already know that but for those of you just a few years younger, you might not remember. The second World War had just ended. Families had dealt with ration cards for years and certain items were not only hard to find, but too expensive to buy or maintain. Automobiles were reasonably priced but rubber (tires) had been rationed for years leading up to the time period I am writing about. Our first family car didn't appear on the scene much before 1950.

City boys hung out with city boys, country boys with country boys. But on Saturdays, things changed a little. Both country boys and city boys went down town. We went separately and by separate means of transportation, us city boys walking or riding our bikes, the country boys coming into town on the back of the family truck or crammed into the family car.

Being city or country had no meaning when it came to what boys liked to do. We went to the same 9 cent matinees at the Hamlet Theater, went to the same dime stores, watched the same ball games, got haircuts at the same barber shops and ate at the same cafes. We bought the same toys (when we had money). We bought marbles and little balsa wood airplanes we could throw into the air and watch glide upon the winds. We made slingshots and pea shooters from the same branches of the same trees. We had the same heroes and we minded our parents and respected our elders in the same manner.

I'm sure that Bruce and I were on more than one occasion in the Hamlet Theater at the same time watching the same movies yet I don't remember him. I'll bet we stood at least once side by side at the candy counter in the Hamlet Theater and bought the same raisinettes and popcorn. But we weren't aware of one another.

We probably wore the same brand of jeans (we called them dungarees back then), the same t-shirts, same baseball hats and same old US Keds tennis shoes (no one called them sneakers back then). We probably had the same haircut (crew) and chewed the same brand of bubble gum yet we don't remember one another.

It's a shame we don't remember each other because our memories of growing up in Hamlet are so much alike. I'm sure if we had it to do all over again and knowing what we now know we would be best friends. Bruce has even remarked a couple of times in the last few months that we are beginning to think alike. And, he's right. But then, I think we always did.

I first met Bruce back in 1999 when he stumbled upon I Remember Hamlet. He volunteered to write a story or two and I gladly agreed to publish them. You see the results now when you visit our pages. We, along with a few others, now have nearly 180 tales to tell about Hamlet and how special it was to us. We enjoy publicizing the place where we grew up so many years ago and our legacy is for our grandchildren to have an idea of how life was in small town America when we were boys.

In June of 2002, I came within a mile of Bruce's house in Brunswick, Ga. on a return trip from North Carolina by taking US 17 instead of I-95. I didn't know it at the time or I would have stopped and begged a cup of coffee off him. We live about 75 miles apart, he in Brunswick, me in Jacksonville, yet we might as well be next door neighbors.

If not for the internet, Bruce and I may have shared the same space a time or two in Hamlet 50+ years ago, but we would never have know it. His contributions to IRH would not have been read by those of you who visit here and all of us would have lost the second chance to know this special man.

Some use the internet for perverse reasons, some for educational reasons and some just for fun. But who would have thought it would bring together a country boy and a city boy 50 years after they blew the chance to be friends?

The internet is but one reason Bruce is now my friend 50 years too late but we are catching up on old times fast. It is also the reason I can call him..... the best friend I never met.

I remember all the things we did and I remember Bruce but only through his writings. But most of all... we both remember Hamlet.
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