Young, old to gather for Melrose reunion

Deputy Editor

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The Melrose Old Timer’s Day had an informal beginning.

“It started in 1954,” former Melrose Chamber of Commerce President James Townson said. “They just had an on-the-ground picnic under the water tower. They had a gathering right there and called it Old Timer’s Day, and it just grew from there.”

Townson, who was the Chamber of Commerce president for 15 years, isn’t sure when the event grew to the scale of a parade and Friday night musical, but Melrose Mayor Tuck Monk does know that class reunions are the centerfold for today’s Old Timer’s Day.

“Yes, everyone goes down and visits,” Monk said. “Lots of old timers and even young timers come back to Melrose for the event.”

Monk said each year former Melrose classes have a reunion at the school, and believes that this year a 10-year reunion has been planned.

“It’s just a couple of days of getting together and visiting,” Monk said. “Everybody has a good time.”

Another mysterious question that remained was, what actually makes an “old timer,” an old timer?

It’s all in the beard, Townson said.

“Several years ago, we used to have a beard contest, and if the men grew beards then they were old timers,” Townson said. “A beard’s a beard.”

Townson said whoever had the best beard — the longest, thickest and grayest — would most certainly earn the title of “old timer.”

“Because they had to grow them a long time,” Townson said, “I think that’s kind of where it originated, but ... nobody really knows how to classify an old timer.”

The festivities, which kick off tonight at the Melrose School gymnasium, include live music, a yard contest, turtle race and of course, the parade Saturday morning.

The turtle race, Townson said, is something Clovis borrowed from Melrose.

“We’ve got our famous turtle race at Melrose Downs,” Townson said, laughing. “We were first to have turtle races, then Clovis came over and started buying our turtles and took them back and sold them to kids over there to enter in their turtle race they had.”

Townson said Melrose was most certainly the first to have the turtle race.

“Deming has the duck races, people have all kinds of animal races, but we were first to do turtle races,” Townson said.

While the turtle race is something old (and maybe even something borrowed, for Clovis at least) something new for the Melrose Old Timer’s Day will see this year is a dominoes tournament.

Townson said the dominoes tournament would give attendees something to do in the “cool gymnasium.”

“They decided to have a 42 tournament (dominoes),” Townson said. “A lot of them go up and play in the cool gymnasium instead of standing in hot weather visiting.”

Festivities kick off at 7 tonight with the musical at Melrose School gymnasium and extend all weekend.