71st Nibroc happening this week

Last Saturday evening just after 9 p.m. I drove past the Root Beer Stand and it was dark and there were no cars there. As I proceeded down Main Street in Corbin there was hardly any sign of life.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

There were people out in restaurants and at the theater, but the lack of seeing people left an empty feeling in me.

I thought to myself, “How different it was when I was in my teens…” On a hot summer evening in August the town was alive with activity.

We had fun driving from one drive-in to another and meeting friends. We would go from the Wing Drive-In to Gerry’s, to the Hungry Hound, then across town to the Dairy Delle.

There would always be a gang of kids standing around the pool halls, the Lunch Queen and at the Youth Center. Those were the “good old days.”

Obviously, it is a different world we live in today. Air conditioning, computers, TV and the like keep us indoors. But the one big obstacle is daylight savings time. We had more time to enjoy activities after dark back then. I would like it better if we had standard time all year long.

A polling group made a survey recently of people around 70 years of age and asked them if life was better 50 years ago. Sixty-six percent of them said “yes.”

Fifty years ago that same company took a poll of the same age group and asked the same question. The result was the same. Sixty-six percent said life was better 50 years ago.

We tend to remember the good times and romanticize about them. Perhaps 50 years from now a poll could be taken and the outcome would be the same. At least I hope so, and I hope that young people will be experiencing a better quality of life.

This takes me back to the first Nibroc Festival 71 years ago. I was 12 years old and I remember it well. It was more of a community affair then, but of course we had more businesses downtown and a better opportunity to organize activities.

The festival has moved through several stages. To me, the best stages were the times when townspeople would dress up in old fashioned wear and stores would decorate their windows with historic items.

The other favorite was during the concert era. Bruce Carpenter brought us some of the top artists in the country and the concerts were free. They are still free, but we can’t afford the bigger names.

The one best festival for me was the 50th anniversary celebration. The weather was perfect. The activities were great. Our own Gary Edwards and Carl Hurley provided excellent entertainment.

I was younger and more active in helping with the festival then and I experienced how much work  Carpenter put in to making Nibroc a good time for all.

In the beginning Loraine Hodge, Chamber of Commerce secretary, worked to make the festival a success. After businesses moved from downtown to shopping centers Carpenter has worked for years to keep it that way. The festival is happening this week.

Come out, and have fun at Nibroc!