As a child I was taught my address to go with my name, in case I got lost in the city. I was thus taught to answer to ``Who are you?'' in these words:
``I am Elton Watlington. I live five miles south of town on Highway 45.''
That was enough identification for Jackson, Tennessee in the early 1930's. South of the Bemis Road there were only a few farm homes, and all of them were ``neighbors'' to us. South of the ``Y'' with Highway 18 there were only the Wilson home, Nelly Jones home, and the McGill home before our old homeplace.
Today the ``Jackson City Limits'' sign is posted at the entrance of Watlington Road on to Highway 45. The Spring Branch across the farm has been relocated twice; the pasture is a lumber and equipment yard for Watlington Brothers and no one lives in the old farm house. The City has come to the farm ``five miles south on Highway 45.''
The Jackson-Madison County School Plan for putting city and county schools together for public education is another indication of the merging of the city and county. The move indicates how ``urban'' if not ``urbane'' even country life has become in this last decade of the 20th Century.