For an hour one recent morning at the Country Diner in Allenstown, amid the undecipherable buzz of customers chatting and the sound of forks scraping eggs from plates, the unofficial breakfast club chose to look back.

The Gordon sisters lived on the Allenstown side of Suncook, in an area including several towns that, to outsiders, seemed to blend into one. The Suncook Village had the perfect mixture, combining a large enough strip – Main Street – with plenty of commerce and lights and nearby music to evolve into a hotspot, unthinkable these days.

That’s why the three Gordon sisters, whose family owned a store downtown for four generations, and local friends ate breakfast together. They formed a nucleus of voices who wanted to remember years past.

Not with frustration, mind you, comparing those days to today, but with smiles and laughing and appreciation that they had had the opportunity to grow up in this region.

“Friday night, the whole town was lit up when we were kids,” said Jane Gordon, who grew up in Suncook and still lives in Pembroke. “A band was playing at the top of the hill and stores were open. You could buy shoes. There was hustling and bustling in the 1950s and ‘60s.”

When it came to yesteryear, descriptions of what made Suncook great were everywhere. The whole area was a playground. Strict parental supervision was decades away.

In fact, Main and Glass Streets served as the center for commerce, entertainment and civic activities for the Suncook Village, and the Towns of Pembroke and Allenstown.

“We were by ourselves a lot because parents were working,” Jane said. “We were playing behind the school and in the woods.”

They played street hockey in the bank’s parking lot. They played kickball. They played handball, bouncing the ball off the walls in back of the Gordon store.

Mischievous behavior was logged into the history books of their minds. There were bands playing on weekend nights, VFW lawn parties, Gordon’s Store, shoes, pizza.

Grace Forest, one of the three Gordon sisters, all of whom have remained in the region, had her own memories.

“Cherry Coke and soda fountains,” said Forest, who’s 71. “And at the end of Gordon’s, they cooked hamburgers. We could stay out all day long and my parents worked long hours. It was a safe place. We were street kids.”

They didn’t have much money. They lived in a four-bedroom apartment above Gordon Store. Main Street’s energy was directly below.

“You would hear everything, cars squealing around at night,” said April Carter, one of the Gordon sisters.

Ryan Leavitt, a family friend, lived in the Suncook Valley for 10 years. She moved there from Lowell, a town in Massachusetts with a colorful past. She lives on the Seacoast now. She loved the Village and flavor of the area.

“I was happy that everybody got together and sat at the front steps at night and we talked,” Leavitt said. “We sang and we danced. I was kind of enamored by the small town. If I needed to go to the store to buy things, someone would give it to me.”

The store underwent facelifts through years, starting out as a drug store, and changing to a variety store and then a breakfast place. George Gordon, died in 1990, and his children declined to take over, burnt out from working at the business after school.

As the round table continued, a local senior sat at a nearby table, his ears growing with each word. He knew what the topic was, because he lived it.

His name was Butch Neveu, who knew you were an outsider if you couldn’t spell his last name. He’s 78 and remembers street gangs. The Ferry Street gang out of Concord had a nasty reputation, until those boys ventured into the Valley, where there were Valley gangs who hung out at Gordon’s and a local pizza joint.

“Concord came down and got pretty beat up,” Neveu said. Asked if he had participated in the rumble, Neveu smiled and said, “I heard about it.”

Neveu, the Gordon sisters and anyone else who lived in the area for decades and stayed had something to say. Times were different then, sure. No TV or smart phones, or distractions saw to that.

These days, kids practice with adults and play in officially organized games, with parents and coaches watching closely.

That was then.

“We rode our bicycles everywhere,” Forest said. “And we didn’t have helmets.”

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