A little chicken history...and a few other critters too

Dear Editor,
In regards to chickens in town, Mr. James is a relatively newcomer and wouldn’t know about our chickens, goats, pigs and cows. (Re: The case for chickens, November 8, 2018, page one.) 
YES, there were many chickens, pens and chicken houses in Newcastle. I, myself had pet chickens in the back yard. Grandma (Hannah) Williams down the street (Birch St, that is) had chickens for years and a barn in her back yard, also a goat and rabbits. 
Our neighbor, Mr. Shields, across the street who lived in the Shell house on Birch Street, would walk down the  street every morning and evening to milk his cow which was at the pen and barn in the lot just east of Jake Shook’s home. 
The Delcamp family lived in two box cars on the lots now occupied by the Sr. Center or old Gertrude Burns School. They had chickens and a large herd of goats. They had a family of about 12 kids and would set a pail of goats milk in the middle of the table and dip the milk out into the cups.  
I was fortunate one time to join them for supper and partook of the goats milk, although at the time, and my young age, I didn’t realize it was goats milk.  
We kids didn’t need toys because we spent our time playing with the baby goats — they could run faster or jump better than we could.  
Another family, the Drummonds, kept a number of pigs in pens at the Roby place up on the west end of Wood Street. I accompanied  him and his two girls, Shirley and Ruth, to feed the pigs on occasion. You don’t know how loud a baby pig can squeal until you try to take one over the fence with Momma pig right behind you. You dropped that piglet when you got to the top of the fence.  
My chickens were given to me for Easter and were made pets but we bought baby chicks — as did a lot of people — at Cuz Oliver feed store, or ordered them thru the mail.  I can still hear them chirping at the Post Office!  
So Mr. James, you missed out on a lot of history of Newcastle and many of us 80 or 90-plus years could give you a few history lessons. 
Try walking down Main Street on board sidewalks. Yes, Newcastle did’t always have paved streets until Ty Thomas became Mayor and gave us many of the improvements during the oil boom and just after World War II that you continue to enjoy today. 
It is a good place to be from, right? I’ve never lived any place else and wouldn’t want to, after 85-plus years.
—Irene Tunnell