Mayberry, around 1962. A debate rages on the town council about how to dispose of an old cannon that has long been viewed as an eyesore. Consensus: Tote it away. Standing firm for keeping the cannon, one Deputy Sheriff Bernard Fife.

In a heated discussion with his boss, Sheriff Andy Taylor, Barney is angry. Andy says at one point, "Barney, you don't like change, do you?" To which Barney says something like, "Well, I'm not crazy about it, if you must know."

With that in mind, we hope that the deputy will not hear of the latest doings on Raleigh's Hillsborough Street, where plans are afoot to raze the Central YMCA in order to build a new and nicer facility. The prospect of tearing the old building down gives many of us a protect-the-cannon feeling for a lot of reasons, but the headline in all this would be that once the old building is down and a new one is up, there will be no more residential space. No rooms to rent for men, as there have been since the place was built in 1959, and for that matter, since the old Y was in place downtown (at the Museum of History site) back in 1911.

That's right. No more corner room at the Y for Barney's vacations, wherein he would walk the streets of the Capital City after having the early morning special and close his evenings with a tapioca. Some nights, his head didn't hit the pillow until 10 o'clock.

For the men now living at the Y (there are 96; capacity is said to be 120), displacement will cause problems. They pay $93 a week now, and some get financial assistance. It'll be tough to find other places. To its credit, the Y promises to help, and it gave the residents several months notice. And the Y will continue to serve as a referral source if, say, someone new to town comes by and wants to know where he can stay.

The small rooms in the "dormitory" portion of the building are in fact intended as temporary residences, though some men have lived there for years. For the YMCA, with a focus on family programs and health and education and children, the rooms perhaps seemed like a high-maintenance service that if cut, would save money for higher priorities.

That makes sense, I suppose, but beyond the residential services, that old building is a touchstone for several generations in Raleigh. Your correspondent was about 7 years old when he took his first swimming lessons there, a bit older perhaps when recreational basketball began. Some of the kids who shared those experiences are at the Y still, now members of the health club. A legion of movers and shakers from the bid-ness community and state government have carried the Y card for years. The late, great Jim Graham, commissioner of agriculture eternitus, was a favorite and faithful member.

How many little Indian princesses have helped their daddies rise from the crossed-leg position after a long meeting in the Y? How many Scout oaths have been recited there? (I once saw an out-of-town Scout bigwig give a speech that recalled George S. Patton, only without his soft spot.) How many little ones took their first unassisted splashes in the Y pool?

And more importantly, consider the comfort and the wisdom so many children of disadvantage, and advantage, for that matter, have gotten in needed doses in one of the organization's multitude of family and youth offerings.

On almost any day, you can walk the Y's halls and hear some delightful squeals from children in various programs, guided by the Y workers and volunteers, people committed to a nobility of purpose few can understand. For some of those kids, these will be the only carefree and light-hearted moments of the day. And now and then, a child will look to one of those Y folks for profound guidance, and will remember, 20 years hence, that Y counselor who steered him to the right path.

Yes, there's no doubt that the old building is not a structure for the ages, or likely to appear in Architectural Digest or to be even a pause in a bus tour of downtown highlights. But if we measured the worth of what goes on inside buildings, over their history, the Y would be said to have the most stunning profile in town. Replacing an old building with a new one won't change that.

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