To the Editor:
I came home to Mount Vernon last weekend for the first time in many years. The occasion was the 55-year reunion of the MVHS class of 1967. I enjoyed great conversation, laughter, and fellowship with people I hadn’t seen in many years. In my heart, it felt like I was home again.
I came to Mount Vernon in 1955 and my family stayed until 1970. Since then, I lost touch with all the people that I knew in Mount Vernon. Despite my absence, Mount Vernon has never fully left me.
Class reunions and the advent of social media allowed me to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances and even those that I barely knew while in school.
I spent the entire weekend in Mount Vernon. I enjoyed the vibrance of a summer evening on Main Street, celebrating First Friday, as I wandered on Main Street. Main Street is different now. Gone are stores like Rudin’s and Ringwalt’s, replaced by other stores, businesses and organizations. But they exhibit a life and vitality that has disappeared from so many other small cities. Main Street in Mount Vernon is doing just fine. The union soldier at the top of the column on the public square can still proudly look out upon a living and breathing community.
I looked for the Continental Can plant where I had worked for a summer. It's gone. So much of Mount Vernon’s industrial past has disappeared. Pittsburgh Plate is gone but replaced by the amazing and wonderful Ariel-Foundation Park. I spent hours wandering through the park. My Fitbit registered over 22,000 steps that day. This park is a great tribute to the industrial past and a treasure for the future. I took my bicycle along the Kokosing Gap Trail to Danville and back. What a joy to share this wonderful trail with walkers, runners and riders on a warm summer morning.
On Sunday morning, I attended services at the Presbyterian Church where my father had been the minister for 15 years. The red brick building still stands tall at the corner of Gay and Chestnut streets.
The new Mount Vernon is impressive, having survived the loss of so much that once was. Yet, it seems that Mount Vernon has embraced the new and stands ready to thrive for many more decades.
I have returned to Buffalo New York, which I have called home for nearly 50 years. Still, there will always be a part of my heart that considers Mount Vernon, Ohio, to be my home.
Bob Sillars
Williamsville, NY
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