By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
NOV. 11, 2025 | Growing up in Macon during World War II, before the many modern gizmos we think we can’t get along without today, was such a more simple life. We wonder if more people do not die of stress today compared to these former times.
In those days, large families dominated lives. You couldn’t get away from them. And that wasn’t all bad.
Back before nightly television was a focus, families often would visit one another at night during the week, and often even on weekends. While this might be suffocating for some, it was a powerful way to keep families together.
Church was a major part of your life. For most people, it was essential. You usually went every Sunday. Some even attended on Sunday night and attended the mid-week service on Wednesday night. (At one time, a few of us boys often went to the Catholic church basement on Sunday night…..since they had one of the few television sets in town we could watch there. But we never went upstairs to the sanctuary.)
In those days, Macon had 57,000 people in 1940 and was considered a major Georgia city. Us boys had the run of the city on our bicycles. We pedaled from one end of town to another in those different times, and no one worried about our safety. But we made sure we were home by suppertime.
By the time we were 12 years old, we always had money in our pockets, for many of us boys had paper routes. It wasn’t so much folding money, as it was change to jingle and buy a candy bar or Coke. You learn a lot about people from throwing a paper route. You find some people are not trustworthy, and would beat a carrier out of the 40 cents for a week’s paper.
Airlines weren’t big then, and many of us were fascinated by airplanes. We knew a guy who operated the local bakery, and also owned an airplane, a Waco bi-plane, with open cockpit and top and bottom wings. The pilot steered from the back cockpit, and for $5 each, he would put two of us in the front cockpit for a spin of about 10 minutes
over town. What fun to see the city, and fly over where we lived, all seen from the air!
We had to pedal our bikes about two miles into Ocmulgee River swamp to get to the landing strip. What fun, this our first few airplane rides.
When age 9, I had my first trip to Atlanta. My uncle was a seed inspector for the Department of Agriculture and he had to visit the Capitol. I remember in particular three items from this trip. First, we stopped at Fresh Air Barbecue in Jackson just six years after it was opened for my first taste of this now-famous food. And it’s still the same great taste and texture today!
After my uncle finished his visit, we ate catfish at Rio Vista restaurant on Memorial Drive. A waitress taught me that lemon would dissolve a fish bone caught in your throat.
And finally, before heading home, my uncle and I walked up Stone Mountain. We could see the tall buildings in downtown Atlanta from this higher view! What a wonderful trip for a youngster just beginning to see a wider world.
That was a less complicated world, and a great time to grow up.
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