The Barbourville Town Common

To The Editor, Charles Myrick

The Mountain Advocate

I was fortunate to have spent a dozen years in New England... fortunate to have noticed how most of the towns were developed around a Town Common... usually a park of some kind or another. Indeed, perhaps the most memorable park in New England is the Boston Common. The idea of a common was very straight forward; being simply a place where everyone could share a moment or two experiencing all that they had in common.

What a wonderful idea... the idea of experiencing what we all have in common.

As I have come to experience Barbourville, I have come to sense the Court House Square as being our common place. After all, it is at the center of the town; it is surrounded by so many public offices that we commonly visit... comfortably visit: all of the County offices; as well as City Hall and its set of offices; along with the Department of Education and its gatherings; not to mention offices for our law enforcement officers and their fire fighting colleagues. And of course, the attorneys. Easy to joke about the attorneys... better for the moment to acknowledge that they are indeed our peacekeepers. They are charged day in and day out with working out the various ways in which law and order is actually administered... developing the agreements and the compromises that are essential to our way of life. Centered always by the Courtroom itself... the centering values of justice and fair play... the common values that surround the pursuit of truth.

As for protecting our way of life, that is the purpose of the Barbourville Town Common.

Also, for relaxing with each other at the monthly sales, at the summertime events, even and especially at the Daniel Boone Festival. Our gathering together times... our common times.

Always bound together by our collective commitment to the common values of law and order that are centered so clearly around and about the Court House. As for those common values, they are about to be tested in this year to come. Not so much here in Barbourville, perhaps... more to be tested on the national stage. Still though, we are a part of that national stage. So it is that we have good reason to bring our Court House values to testing moments that are to come... our values in common... pursuing the truth as exampled by our Court House... Barbourville’s Town Common.

Bill Daniel

Barbourville, Ky.