Out-Living A Small Town

An excerpt from Jamie Rhein:

This Sunday I went to my great-uncle's funeral in Hindman, Kentucky. He was the youngest of 11 children and the last one living. Good-bye to that generation. It's weird to have one layer of family gone. But, even more unsettling is a comment made by one of the people who gave a eulogy. He said that he moved to Hindman in 1956 and since then there are only two businesses still remaining. One is the Bank of Hindman. The other is the funeral home. As he said, my uncle, at age 82, had outlived his town. ...

He was the post master there for years and he owned the movie theater that doesn't exist any more. He also ran the drive-in that hasn't been around for a few decades. I'm not even sure where it was. It's startling how fast change can occur to the point that much of a place is no longer recognizable. The vibrancy of life that existed in Hindman that my uncle captured with a movie camera back when my mother was a child is no where to be seen.