I don't go back. . . .

I never have, it's just not my way. I've never gone back to old places of employment, to old schools, to class reunions, I've never talked to past romantic interests. It's just not my way. I don't go back, though I sometimes look back in my mind, I don't physically go back.

But at work, the manager of the department that audits me is a friend from childhood. She and I grew up together from probably the age of 3. When I was hired, people were "warning" me, "You'll have to deal with Jennifer" and I would laugh and say, "Oh, I've dealt with Jennifer before." So from time to time, Jennifer and I will exchange stories of the past, gossip of today. We'll just talk about the way it used to be. It's harmless fun.

So yesterday while I was driving into my hometown for a visit to see my parents, I surprised myself. . . . at the very last second before passing the neighborhood of my childhood, I hit the blinker and turned left. It's not like me, I don't go back. Probably since my parents moved out of there to return to their hometown, the year after I graduated from high school, I have only been in that neighborhood a handful of times. . . . I can only think of 2 or 3 occasions. . . . and they were to visit with families after a funeral. All but one of the families from my childhood have grown older, moved away, are in nursing homes, or have passed on their reward. And in my romantic mind, they deserve truly rewards for providing us with the neighborhood of my childhood.

It was the best of times. . . period. No worst of times. Very idyllic, almost Leave It To Beaver. The neighborhood was a cul-de-sac, though we did not know the word cul-de-sac, we just called it "the circle." The circle must have once been the end of the street, but somebody decided to build 3 more after the circle. Ours, one on the right, and one that effectively capped the end of the street. *

So yesterday, as I was coming into town to visit with my parents, I surprised myself with the left hand turn. It seemed so easy, a turn I made so many times. I learned to drive while living there but I have effectively driven past it without looking for so many years. I don't go back, I didn't want to go back. But yesterday I did.

Oh, what a melancholy site for my eyes. All the houses were once homes, in our private little world. They were small, but filled with life. The older couples had grown children and grandchildren who would visit, the other families were peers to my parents and filled with children my own age. Two other families had fathers/husbands that were in civil service like my father. Two homes were grandparents who always treated my brother and myself warmly - in fact, the family across the street had a granddaughter who was my first childhood love. The homes were always well kept - painted, trimmed, mowed, with signs of life and children and happiness. Jennifer and I have said that one Mom almost never went looking for a child, because the child was probably in the backyard of another house the Mom was calling to borrow a cup of sugar from anyway.

But the site before me yesterday was bleak and bleary. An overcast and cold day added to the effect, but so did the faded paint, the the blinds torn in the windows, the haphazard way things were strewn in backyards or the glaring lack of anything at all in the yards. I glimpsed at backyards that once seemed full of magic, full of hiding places, yards open to the neighborhood children to run from yard to yard with no care of boundaries. Now they seemed barren of life, or filled with so much ugly flotsam and trash. For sale signs littered yards and the carports were empty. It was so sad to me, so melancholy.

I don't go back. And now I know why.

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As an aside that has no bearing on this story - that house, the one that capped the end of the street, was I think, a later addition. It, in no way, resembled all the other houses. They tell us that the elderly lady that lived in the first house on the street, "Mrs. Moore" had owned all the land as farm land. At some point, she and her husband built all the little houses on the street. They had once been all the same, we think, probably built in the 60's. By the time I came into the neighborhood in the early 70's, owners had made some changes to the houses and they seemed less like copies of each other and more like individual homes.

Some owners had placed siding, others had painted, still others had closed in carports or added rooms on to the back. Looking back, I did not realize that my own home had closed in the carport and then added a carport on. It seemed perfectly normal to me to have a living room that was two steps lower than the rest of the house, and two bathrooms next to each other, and two bedrooms next to each other. Looking back now, I can't quite figure out how that design came to be. But it seemed normal to us.

Our neighborhood was a valley. I don't have any idea how nature came to make it, but the town is full of hills and valleys, and so our neighborhood sat in a valley. To the north is a parallel street with houses sat upon the hill/higher elevation. To the South is untamed woods.

The furthest away we would run and play was generally "Anthony's Hill." Anthony lived on the cross street and behind his large built home was a clay hill. It was a small section of the Southern woods that had been cut out. I have no idea why, but clearly a backhoe had done the job, leveling the hill woods and giving the kids a perfect flat area of clay and mud to play. It was a child's dream and a laundress's nightmare. All sorts of bike riding and ball playing went on there ~ and when winter came and killed the kudzu, giving us handhold ropes, we would climb the woods. It's hard to describe the woods, filled with kudzu and trees and ravines. Lost somewhere back in there is an old car with a big white star painted on the side. How it got there, no kid ever knew. Often, we could fall into the ravines, or Tarzan style hope for the best and swing over them with a big handful of dried kudzu hanging from a tree. Looking back, it almost seems like something some other kid would do ~ some child from a best seller fantasy book. All bundled up in our warmest clothes, climbing through the hilly woods and swinging from kudzu. But it was me, and it was us.