Shania O'Bannon: TAKE ME HOME COUNTRY ROADS... Spent most of my elementary school years living in a little town called Ponchatoula. You might’ve heard of it... Self proclaimed strawberry and antique capitol of the world. Anyway, it was a step above Mayberry, but not too many... we were able to ride our bikes from home (ours in the country) in to town... actually read books while lounging on the library floor, all of us kid’s mothers knew one another, and it wasn’t uncommon to get a whooping from one of them either. Ponchatoula Feed and Seed store was an amazing place as a child. You could get penny candy, a duck a chicken and/or anything in between. It was a place that was the hustle and bustle of town. Every Saturday, all year long, was busy. Farmers getting new plants or seeds, parents being talked into a rabbit or baby duck, kids shelling out coins for candy or using the old coke machine, you know the one... looked like a cooler and you had to jig jag the bottle of soda through the line... But, all in all, it was a place to say hey to your neighbors. You might run into your teacher or preacher or even the Mayor (Doc Gideon). I remember these Saturdays well. If my parents needed to visit someone I could meet friends down there, and we would make our way over to the donut shop and then the park... Just a great part of childhood. Today, I took the long way home... I drove through Ponchatoula, and saw the old store. I stopped in for old times sake... the outside was still the same, but the inside... completely redone in beautiful woods, large shiny beams reaching across the ceilings... the smell of fowl long gone. The people non existent... in their place we’re four teen/20ish aged individuals. No one bothered a “how do you do?” or “may I help you”... no old men standing around arguing about who would have the best strawberry crop that year... no one at all was in there except for the four people, leaning on the counter staring at their cellphones. I couldn’t even walk through looking at the wares. I just felt like our generation of young people had been robbed of something great... still feeling that way tonight, and wondering if it’s just me... We have come so far with technology, but in the process I believe that we have lost a great deal more.