I Grew Up Here

Written By: Frieda McCall Bennett | Issue: March 2025

Trudy Rogers Alexander shared this picture of Pearl and Dusty’s (her Mom and Dad) home.

As I look out my back door, I see the streetlight along the Franklin Road in Highlands.

It’s just a streetlight, but so much more. It was the light beside my home just 200 feet as the crow flies from where I have lived for 52 years. I never got very far from the beginning of my life as I move toward the end of my life.

As a child and teen, I wandered far and wide with this light marking home.

I guess my favorite memories are of the silent snowfalls that would draw us children outside at any time of the night. It would be strange for children to roam so freely today, but it was a type of heaven back then.

Some of the houses were magnets for us. One such house was the Rogers house, which drew all of us wanderers at night to the continual card games and warmth of friendship for anyone who chose to drop by. Pearl and Dusty (their house was where the covered bridge is today) never seemed to mind the number of visitors or how long someone stayed.

Romances started here and led to several weddings. Later in the evening, I walked home alone with the snow still coming down and not a soul around. The silence was something I have never experienced since. The streetlight gave me light to get to my gate along the highway and the porch light was always left on. My first kiss was at that gate as the knight in shining armor walked me home one evening.

No key was needed as I entered the house. No one was waiting up because your parents knew you were safe. The silence of the house was different from the silence of the snow.

It was a different time in a place that has always been home, but that streetlight brings such memories as I look out and remember.

Frieda McCall Bennett shared this sweet Highlands memory with us. Frieda, whose high school photo appears to the left, taught High School Social Studies at Highlands School for many years.

Throughout this busy year and beyond, we’re going to be spotlighting the men and women who’ve grown up on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau. Their lives have something to teach us, lessons in danger of being lost in the frantic pace of 21st century bustle and bother.