Drove through my old neighborhood today, the one wherein I spent a majority of my childhood. That was surreal. I haven't been back through there since 1992 as far as I can recall.
I saw my old bus stop for elementary school and the one for JR. and high school. Some houses where friends lived and some houses where we just knew the people.
The first person who ever told me about a BBS, a kid I went to school with lived down the street. I remember a friend of his parents always came over in a '66 Mustang fastback that was sweet.
This girl whom I can't remember why we made fun of her, but she lived a few doors down. It might have been her name which sounded a lot like CITA (see-tah) a catholic charity here. Her's, I can't remember if I ever knew how to spell it, was pronounced the same way. She wore glasses and liked to play with insects.
There was the neighbor's house (on the west side) whom we found out after years of living there was spying on us for the landlord and reporting every time an argument was had, or we didn't mow the lawn in time.
My brother's and mine friends who lived down the street, Raymond and Ryan's house. Their father bought them a little 50cc scooter. I as riding it, hit a pot hole and flipped it. That hurt.
I saw my old bus stop for elementary school and the one for JR. and high school. Some houses where friends lived and some houses where we just knew the people.
The first person who ever told me about a BBS, a kid I went to school with lived down the street. I remember a friend of his parents always came over in a '66 Mustang fastback that was sweet.
This girl whom I can't remember why we made fun of her, but she lived a few doors down. It might have been her name which sounded a lot like CITA (see-tah) a catholic charity here. Her's, I can't remember if I ever knew how to spell it, was pronounced the same way. She wore glasses and liked to play with insects.
There was the neighbor's house (on the west side) whom we found out after years of living there was spying on us for the landlord and reporting every time an argument was had, or we didn't mow the lawn in time.
My brother's and mine friends who lived down the street, Raymond and Ryan's house. Their father bought them a little 50cc scooter. I as riding it, hit a pot hole and flipped it. That hurt.
The guy across the street who always yelled if we cut through his yard.
And a myriad of other memories I'd forgotten and remembered.
There was the house that had the standard poodle who would always act like Cujo when we passed their house. I still don't like standard poodles.
And a myriad of other memories I'd forgotten and remembered.
There was the house that had the standard poodle who would always act like Cujo when we passed their house. I still don't like standard poodles.
This girl who is a year or two older than me, whose brother I played with as a kid, who sent me a Facebook invite. I never hung out with her but I remember she made it about two weeks in Navy boot camp before quitting and returning home. I'd already joined the Army but hadn't left yet for basic.
My friend Phil's father's house -- a house I spent a lot of time in was still sitting there, but it looked smaller and more rundown than I could ever recall. Phil and I are still friends and I know his extremely religious parents split up; his white supremacist father's daughter has two kids by two different black men and his son is on and off drugs. Phil, the high school dropout is married, three children and living the (traditional) American dream in a nice suburban style neighborhood.
I could still show you where my first fight was (can't remember his name), my first kiss (can't remember her name either), where we camped in the back yard and where we watched thunderstorms from the front yard. The house on the corner, the guy had a small dog, a cocker spaniel perhaps, and I would play with it whenever he was outside.
I remember lighting fireworks in the driveway and shooting my bb gun in the back yard. The neighbor had sugarcane growing in their yard and we would go cut it down and chew on it. Another neighbor, of the east side of the house we were in, hated it when we had to go into his yard to get our ball back.
William (Bill) Cruse lived down the street from us, I mean 7 or 8 houses down. We used to fish in the creek that bordered his yard. I remember when his shooting spree started, even though he was a mile away at KMart my mom freaked out and took us to spend the night at her friend's house. I was late for school the next day and had to explain to my teacher why.
So surreal. I mean, I've come back to this town before, numerous times over the years, but I nearly always stay on the main thoroughfares and just have never gone through my old street. Even the many times I've passed within a block or two of it while going to and fro.
The neighborhood did look rundown, though. Not just the house I grew up in, which had apparently been painted, but the whole neighborhood. It looked like the entire neighborhood juts gave up caring. Lawns weren't nice, fences were ratty, mailboxes leaned every which way and people had stuff, just stuff, stacked all around their houses.
But maybe it was like that when I was a kid and I just didn't notice. I remember my mom was a smoker (she quit a few years ago) and she would get out of her car and flick her butts in the yard. It made mowing the lawn a pain in the ass. So, maybe it was a dirtier place than I remember. Our perceptions change as we get older, especially as we learn and change.
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