Last modified: Sunday, June 7, 2009 2:12 AM EDT GOUVEIA: Welcome to Norton 1974 As my wife and I were driving last Sunday, we both realized that day marked the 35th anniversary of our graduation from Norton High School. My first reaction to this revelation was my wife is really getting old - but I wisely didn't share that thought with her. It hardly seems possible 35 years have gone by. The fact we still live in town - which our children think is the most pathetic thing ever - may have something to do with that. And the fact I still act 12 years old much of the time may also contribute. I started to think about all that has changed in the last 35 years. In 1974 Johnny Carson was still the king of late night television. His successor Jay Leno remarked upon his last Tonight Show recently, "Things have changed. Today my hair is white, and the president is black!" He's right, a lot certainly has changed. In 1974 cell phones were the things on the wall in jails. People actually used pay phones. Computers were the size of small countries, cigarettes were less than a buck a pack, a fancy car radio got FM stations, young men were concerned about the draft, and if you wore a helmet while riding your bicycle your friends would make fun of you for the rest of your life. In 1974 teachers knew almost every student's name. Today, students wear identification cards around their necks. I know it's for safety reasons and for their own good - that doesn't mean I have to like it. In 1974 Norton had three banks and one donut shop. Today, the donut shops outnumber the financial institutions, and are probably more profitable. Back then there were three selectmen and 15 finance committee members. Today there are five selectmen and 11 finance committee members. That might have been a backwards move, huh? And today Norton has a traffic light. We had no traffic lights in 1974, except the crosswalk light at the school. One traffic light in an entire town and nearly everybody complains about it. We have a world-class golf course now, and soon we will even have a southbound onramp to Route 495 off Route 140. Heck, in 1974 we didn't even have Route 495. But as I look around, some things have not changed. For better or worse, much around my hometown is still essentially the same as it was 35 years ago. We still hold Town Meeting in the old gymnasium at what is today called the Yelle School, an old building originally set up in part as a bomb shelter in the 1950's. Sure, we have three newer schools all equipped with auditoriums that would house people in a more efficient manner, but still we pack them into the musty old gym with the hard iron chairs. Tradition is a powerful force, The town common remains much the same, with its antique iron fence awaiting the next person who plows through it. Alec Rich, who fixed the fence every time that happened, is gone, but his extended family remains a powerful and influential force in town. The Norton Reservoir remains polluted, as it was in 1974 before the sewage treatment plant was built and Mansfield and shore residents used it as cesspool. There is still a plan to clean it up, as there was 35 years ago, and no doubt will be 35 years from now. In 1974 we worried about sending our young people halfway across the world to fight a war for reasons that didn't make much sense. Today, we have two wars around the globe. Only one makes no sense, so I guess you could consider that progress. I think what I miss most was in 1974 I could take my then and future best girl and go to Bristol Farms or Frates Dairy for an ice cream, sit by the water and watch my hometown bustle around me. Now Bristol Farms sits empty and decaying, while Frates is a Chinese restaurant. And 35 years ago I was an 18-year-old town Finance Committee member. Today as town moderator, I appoint that committee. And you thought the one traffic light was a problem. BILL GOUVEIA