To the editor:

Your article on Bill Hannan ("The one and only Bill Hannan," July 29) was well put. Although I have been out of Attleboro for several years, and have missed many of his articles, I always made it a point to get a copy of The Sun Chronicle when I was in town just so I could read what Bill had to say about years gone by. I always wondered why the paper didn't include Bill's column online, because many of the people who have left Attleboro and read the Web site version would have been interested in Bill's writings. At one time I read one of his columns and wrote to him with a minor correction of where the accompaning photo was taken. Bill wrote me a handwritten note thanking me. I only knew Bill by sight, although my parents knew him, as they were in the same age range.

I grew up in Attleboro, having been born there in 1940, and was there until 1984, when I moved to Florida. Last year I joined the "mass exodus" out of Florida and headed for the hills (literally) to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

Getting back to Bill...he was part of a generation that lived through probably the hardest and yet the most interesting times in America - the Depression of the '30s and World War II - and thus has a wealth of information that not many have today about Attleboro and those times. I remember vaguely the end of the war and vividly the stories the people told of the Depression. Also, Bill had a wealth of information and memories of Attleboro as it was. The old time ballplayers, townspeople, factory owners and workers and such. I remember a lot of them with fondness. Attleboro was a good place to grow up.

Anyway, I hope someone comes along to try and continue Bill's tradition of telling those stories. One guy comes to mind who is a prolific writer and has a wealth of information about how Attleboro was when he (and I) grew up: Tom McAvoy. Just a thought. The men and women of Bill's generation were a special breed that we won't see again.

John Ahlquist
Bakersville, N.C.