See RogerConant.com for my very great grandfather, Roger Conant's story. Gary Canant
Bynum Kids Growing up in Bynum, Alabama
Bynum in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was an unintentional experiment of an entire community rearing its children. There were no rich or poor people in Bynum; our fathers all worked at the Depot and our mothers focused on motherhood. We lived in similar housing, drove similar cars, shared experiences and even shared families. That Bynum is gone now. The houses have been torn down, the school is closed, one of the churches is up for sale, the neighborhood market is gone, and you cannot even get into our old living area without a government pass. People are disappearing, too; our parents and some of the Bynum Kids are leaving us much too quickly. This website is dedicated to rebuilding the Bynum of our childhood using our collective memories and memorabilia before we all fade away. We have lived out our adult lives scattered to the four winds and now it is time to reconnect with each other to remember the past that defined us.
Nowadays, children do not have the option to roam the neighborhoods and skate and bike as we did. There is much danger lurking and it is a loss of freedom for children. We never heard of child abductors (if the truth were to be told, they would have brought us home almost immediately). We left the house after breakfast and only came in to get water and then went back out. We came in reluctantly at dark when supper was ready. Our parents didn’t worry about us, because all the parents worried about all of us and watched us. It was a way of life that is completely gone now. Neighbors don’t know neighbors any more. We stay behind locked doors with air conditioning and never meet the neighbors. Children do not want to leave the computers and video games.
We have lost so much of community living and the sad thing is that community living will not be back as it was in the mellow times of the 1950s. The apartments at Bynum have been torn down for many years now. There is still a depot where they refit tanks but also now they burn nerve gas there in the Westinghouse plant. Everything we knew as a child is gone up in smoke, not to be seen again.
Gary Canant, Mr. Walker as Santa, and who is the girl? Gail Kinsaul Ford and Shelia Slaten Crump have voted that they think the little girl with you and Santa Walker is Linda Wolfe
Mystery Solved by Kay Melton Heimmer
Actually, I am the one on Santa's other knee. I can still remember two things associated with that night: (1.) How that big, bushy-bearded, loud man was rather scary, and (2.) How much I wanted one of the presents they were giving to the kids after they talked to Santa. I decided the present was worth the risk! (I think I received a coloring book and crayons - such a thrill then!)
