Do you membuh?

I ah-membuh back in the 1960s and early '70's, Route 184 through this area, "The Gold Star Highway" was concrete. It was poured in slabs with a tar poured between the gaps to soften the damage as cars rode over them.

The shoulders were done in asphalt pavement. As a Youth, we would walk down to Old Mystic and the quarry to go swimming. Then walk to the General store to acquire smokes, and back where we would spend the day smoking cigarettes, swimming, fishing, and doing what young boys do, trying to get the tops off the girls.

The problem with an asphalt shoulder is that in the summer the sun turns the asphalt to a temperature that removes the layers of skin off the bottom of your feet. (At least it felt like that). So we would walk on the concrete which was much cooler. Of course every-time a car came you had to get back on the asphalt. Luckily cars weren't as predominate as they are now, most traffic used the Interstate. The only problem with the concrete was that the tar they poured to fill the cracks would get hot and if you stepped on it would stick to the bottom of your feet and burn. So we would wait until evening, go to the highway, grab an end of the tar and pull up. This would pull the entire strip out and break off at the center line. No more hot tar to step on. This is why the stretch between Cow Hill road and Old Mystic produced loud thumps as cars rode over them. 

Sample concrete road, Not 184

Back then the highway was lined with wood guard rails and cables. In the posts were reflective marbles. Well we thought they were marbles, that is until we pried them out and found they were actually a cylinder with a rounded end.

Back in that same time, Mystic had cobblestones in the Bank square area and it still had trolley tracks in place.

The Stonington side of the town had that all paved over.

Back in the early 1990's an old gentleman who lived at Bank square had a couple sheds. He passed away and the family wanted the sheds torn down. The first  shed came down quickly. The second turned into more of a chore. Not that it was difficult, it turned out that the shed was actually an old street cleaner trolley. So Shoreline Trolley museum out of Maine (With the help of George Cassidy from the Valley Railroad(Essex)) came down and the unit was lifted onto a flat bed. As the car was lifted George noticed something underneath, so he reached under and pulled the spring loaded arm. The trolley bell rang out load and clear for the first time in roughly 50 years.