You are getting up there in years if you can remember the old Mark Hopkins School and its clock that tolled the hour. It was the only North Adams grammar school to have a gymnasium. It was located on Church Street. Today, the land on which it stood is the site of MCLA's admissions office and parking lot.

You are old if you can remember when people died, they were "waked" at home. The palatial funeral homes for last rights are of fairly recent vintage. When people were "laid out" at home, the front door of the deceased's home bore a "crepe" of flowers.

You are getting old if you can remember the "Drury Bell" being rung in late evening following a victory at the old Drury gymnasium. We really don't know who tolled the victory bell, but we suspect it was a certain faculty member.

You are getting old if you can remember young girls playing "hopscotch" and "jumping rope" -- an activity that we haven't seen in many a moon. Basketball and softball are activities we see from where we live.

You are really old if you can remember so-called "branch libraries" in North Adams. There may have been others around the city in the early 1930s, but the one that we remember was at the juncture of Houghton and Brooklyn streets. If we remember correctly, there was another in Blackinton. A lady named Agnes Firth was in charge at the Houghton Street location, and she was assisted at times by Mrs. Sergius Bernard.

You have grown old since some of your neighbors kept

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chickens. It was nice being in bed and being awakened by a rooster when dawn was breaking.

We are old enough to remember riding on "running boards" of old model cars. Neighbors were generous with these kinds of rides on North Adams' hilly streets. It was not the safest of practices, but we can't remember anyone falling off. Today, this practice would be forbidden. When was the last time you saw running board on a car?

You are getting old if you remember drivers attaching chains to their tires on an icy morning. This was a cold, exasperating experience -- one to be avoided.

As we watched Red Sox fans freezing on opening night in April, we remembered when the Sox opened their season on Patriot's Day with a doubleheader: Both games were day games. The first was in the morning at 10 o'clock, and the second was at 1 in the afternoon, following the end of the Boston Marathon in Kenmore Square.

You are really old if you can remember the grand and glorious Fourth of Julys before the Second World War put an end to these frolicsome celebrations. We wish that authorities would bring back the Grand and Glorious Fourth just one more time.

Roger Rivers of Adams, 90 years young, loves to spin tales from the past about the city of his birth.