On Returning To Liberty for a 45^th Reunion

 How wonderful it was to return to a prosperous and vibrant Liberty for my high school class’ 45^th Reunion.  I never recall Liberty being so green and lush or an August in Liberty being so mild.  Old landmarks still survive – the Square with Whiteside Jewelers, D’Agee Florist,  Brants, The Jesse James Museum; Mace’s Shoe Repair; along with the venerable Tribune; the nearby churches; the Statute of Liberty reproduction in front of the elementary school; the old courthouse and William Jewell , – New businesses thrive – a popular Mexican restaurant where a hardware store used to be;  an upscale restaurant and bar (with sadly indifferent service) on the north side of the square where an abstract company had been,  wine-tasting events at cocktail hour in an old bank building now a gift shop;  a bunch of cool antique shops and many more gift shops where grocery stores, law offices and  drug stores used to be –then there’s the neat Corbin Theater in a space that was Rexall Drugs; a little ice cream parlor; a  coffee shop— and the fantastic Farmers’ Market on Saturday run (we’re told) by a sixteen year old.  In 1964 when we graduated there was no farmers’ market on Saturday morning around the square – in fact the farmers themselves had quit coming into town on  Saturday.  Congratulations Historic Liberty you’re fighting a battle that we – as the ’64 graduating class of Liberty – hope will prove a winner. And now a second high school next year! Unheard of!! And how many elementary schools-five?

Sadly many of us felt development has taken a big bite out of the town we remember.  How awful is that drive from I-35 along Route 152 into Liberty! – What are there? One hundred fast food joints? Did someone really travel from Florida to get fifty-two free meals at a new Chick-Fill-A?  And those beautiful oak trees on the site that was the Clayview Country Club– what demented soul cut them down and put up a CVS drug chain store?  Certainly not a 1964  Liberty High graduate who at seventeen or eighteen  trudged up to that old high school on the hill carrying an arm full of books – proud of the new gym that had been completed a few years before and fighting the dust and noise of a new classroom addition that would not be completed until after they graduated. And certainly not someone who loves this town as does the vast majority of my ‘64 graduating class.

Our class gathered on a beautiful cool clear summer night on August  21^st   for dinner and to hear Liberty’s own Lori Tucker (Loretta Houston class of ‘64) sing a set of jazz standards accompanied by her husband and a keyboardist.  What fun it was to watch through much older eyes a community breathe in and out on that August weekend – when big issues of the day seemed to pause for a moment allowing this small group of Liberty natives a chance to recall football games and band practices, phys ed classes and debate team trips, high school proms and math teachers, little league baseball games and girl scout camp and to allow a time to appreciate the new and the old, the good and the bad of a community that was so much a part of our lives and that formed each of us in a thousand different ways. It was a summer night to enjoy for a very few hours a group of people that knew each other when we were really at a quite vulnerable time of our lives. – A wonderful odd mixture of people who shared with each other the life experiences of a small Midwestern community and that belonged to a high school organization that no one else can ever join.  A class that survived the sixties to tell about it and who watched a somewhat sleepy community of some eight to ten thousand grow into a major suburban  Kansas City powerhouse. A class that continues to look to the future but a class that still enjoys every few years stepping back and inhaling the nostalgia of having grown up in such a fine city.

About The Author

Joe Roberts is native of Liberty, Missouri. He graduated with a BA degree from the University Of Missouri and a JD degree from George Washington University in Washington, DC.  He retired from the Virginia civil litigation firm of Brandt, Jennings, Roberts, Davis and Snee in 2002 after almost 30 years of practice, after which he served as a counselor for the Virginia Insurance Advocacy program and as a volunteer for the Virginia Guardianship Association and the Arlington County Agency on Aging. He now works as an estate planning attorney for The Collins Firm in McLean, Virginia. He is married with two children and two grandchildren and resides in Arlington, Virginia.