Disclaimer: This will NOT be interesting. To Anyone. Who did not. Grow up...outside of BeeP's/BeeC's. Even those folks will probably move onto Perez Hilton's site.) This is about as Anti-Garrison as it gets, but it cheesily came out of no where...Isn't that where whims start anyway?
I took a right today. Instead of a left. That's how it started.
It's been a minute since I've been to my original karate school in BC, well, Before I started the Ninja show at the BLB anyway. I've been itching to meet the new instructor, who RSVP told me was pretty good. Time and commitments being what they are have kept me away, sadly but... today though, I made it. And made a commitment to him that I'd go. And he was happy. And it was good.
After getting my ass kicked, then storing my gear in my trunk, and planning about how I would finish my afternoon before Dorajar finished her rehearsal, I whimsically decided to kill a minute with a drive to my home town...And here we go:
This is less romantic than the layperson would think. Small town people have their own version of nostagilia, believe me. It wasn't like I grew up in the middle of a bean field...but there are those folks- (All 2-3 people I graduated with who happen to stumble on my blog)- Who might read me. It was a surreal slice of nostalgia that brought me back to my home town. And furthermore compelled me to frass about it for a second or two. I'd save it for a written journal...or an LJ private post, really...but it creeped into me like no one's business and I felt strongly about writing it here.
Okay, Okay...enough justifications. Frass off if you don't dig it:
"They'd moved out over three years ago. And I realized I personally hadn't been there in over two."
Brooklyn Blvd remained moderately unchanged. The Brooklyn Center BK which became a Vietnamese Joint had become a VFW. The clinic which oversaw my big brothers allergy shots all those years was still there. The Bridgemans apparently closed and was scheduled for a grand-reopening in the same spot. The tiny mall on 63rd was still there...the Little Brooklyn's where big brother amazed the server with his ability to eat the entire enormous "Mexican Plate" used to be? An Asian food store...I still tell people that story.
Across the Boulevard, the place that was Zayre's was razed. Making way for a new strip mall. The 694 interchange was unchanged. The only icon missing was the enormous ITEN building. Our own skyscraper in the burbs. I lefted on 69th, noticing the long absent Taystee Outlet. (A place where we'd stock up on mini-donuts) and the mini-mall (site of the Adventures in Video that gave us our first VHS rental: "Dragonslayer". It was mom's B'day gift. And the Pop Shoppe...with their knock off cola's that we dutifully drank and returned their bottles) that had been replaced by another mini-mall...with an obligatory liquor store attached to a tobacco store...and Subway.
The street signs were new. Bordered and large lettered, fancier. I saw Starbucks on the corner where there had been...nothing? Before. How much business do you get, Mr. Bucks?
Post Office, check. Health Partners, Check (17 years since you diagnosed my Mono.) The streets were all there. I passed Maranatha...site of my big brother's first "real" job. New sign. Still the same. Pebble Creek apartments...where I went to a pool party and my friends hid my underwear when I was in the pool, sending me home (walking) crying. My junior high. Still there. No physical changes but I see flags of many nations hanging in the cafeteria.
I want to go home. But first, I think, let's try the ancestral manse. I almost past Colorado Ave. The tree's on the corner are so big ("When did they get so big?") And I drive down. I think of names and memories and see "For Sale" signs littering the front yards. I remember the names on that block. Mike. Nikki. Mitch. I drive and do a loop at the end cul-de-sac. Marci's old house still has that shed in the back ("And where they build the hockey rink. And where they had the pool where you and she snuck beneath the pool cover until both your parents thought you were dead and drowned. You. Got. Whupped!")
In and Oy lived across the street. They were Korean, but everyone assumed they knew Karate, right?
Back home, with the streets you know (Bethia, Brunswick, Colorado, Douglas) and you see the houses where you played when the world was small...and their names (Dave, Jimmy, Brady , Phil and Jeremy, Aaron, Emory, Brian, Jason, Brian, Brenda) And then your house:
Seriously. It hasn't been two years since your folks were trying to sell it. They were already in their new place. The economy was crappy. It took so long to sell it. I remember helping the clean out. The raking. The trips that were made "specifically" to my old house.
And here it is. It's yellow. Rather, the new vinyl siding is yellow. And there are 5 cars in both parking lots. And a new basketball hoop. I don't stay long. And I go.
The wait at Zane an 71st drives me nuts. For real. I almost get out of my car to hit the "Walk" button. I check out the elementary school. The hexagonal building is called a Community School now attached to a "Community Learning Center". The hockey/ice rink warming house is gone. I can barely see the new playground behind the scho...community center. "Emit Fo Eye" is gone (The "Eye of Time", which was a football shaped climby thing that my two friends and I played "Dr. Who")
73rd
Zaneway is gone. So is the underage selling liquor store, Bamboo House (Where I wanted pancakes and mom ordered me Moo Goo Gai Pan as a substitute, but big brother still got a cheeseburger. Incidentally, that was the earliest memory of "They serve dog!!!" stereotype. Unsubstantiated, but clearly...well. the malls gone isn't it?
Gone is the Speedy Mart- Home of many an ingested Drumstick/Whatchamacalit/Push Up/Big League Chew/Jolt/Kempswich...sugar...something...Video World, where Mom gave the owner permission to let you rent (underage) "R" rated movies (And eventually your first adult movie rental as a favor for your Blaine Girlfriend at age 18) DW's, the mini-diner. And the place that sold records your old man called a "Head Shop" and your folks wouldn't let you go in to.
No, there are brand new town homes in their place. Big. Pretty. And the awful part of me wonders why there are so many pretty brand new houses in this neighborhood and how long it will be before they go bad? The first bank I would get money for my mom at is now a Dental clinic. The bowling alley where I applied for my first job, more homes. How can a state in a housing deficit afford these many homes? Didn't my big brother get attacked by a woodchuck by Shingle Creek behind where those homes are?
(Right on Brooklyn Blvd)
Village North, gone. Homes to follow. I see White A##hole is still running. And the mini-mall (Wasn't there a Tradewinds Used Bookstore? Didn't Mom, Ro, and I just stock up on books there for fun?)Trying to get my bearings before PCHS (I see Rocky Roccoco...on the site of Gatti's...where I reprimanded my buddies for smoking at age 16 over sausage deep dish) BK, Arby's, even Mc D's...the big hitter's? All gone. (And f#ck. The things that happened at Village North. Everything. Concerts. Hockey banquets at Circus Circus. Tapes bought at Musicland. GI Joes bought at "Best". Walgreen's visits for that cute cashier. Heck, there was an IJA which begat a True Value which begat a outdoorsman store- which I applied for a job at- and didn't get. Gone.
Now there's a...I don't know..."rec" thing that cater's corporate deals. Blondie's is still there, as is the methodist church I attended as a youth. PCHS has a fancy new sign in front as well as some other exterior modifications...a far cry from the days when (cough cough) ne'er do wells stomped a pair of boobs in the snow outside the main stairway windows.
I decided on the direct route home, opting to take a left this time...up 69th and pissing off the fella behind me. I could see Prince of Peace in the distance. It looked undisturbed, and I remembered it had been 8 years since I set foot inside for a wedding, and 18 years since I was asked to come out on Easter Sunday to watch my brother's girlfriend and the girl my 15 year old-self loved canter.
I rounded up into Mounds Cemetery. In place since the late 19th century. An impressive feat that I'd never considered.
My mom, bro, and I (Amateur necrologists) would picnic here and look at the markers. There was one with a lamb on top (Years later, I'd learn that it'd mean a child had passed) that we nicknamed "Lambie". We'd eat mini-donuts from the Taystee thrift store down the street and look at the old headstones.
Many, Many years later this would be the place a former high school classmate of mine rested. It was here, at the ancient (snark) age of 33 I decided to pay my respects.
And I did. It was windy. And cold. And,God, I didn't know what to say. I felt like I should have said something...profound. But I just stared. For a few minutes. Then I was in Springville for some reason. Then I left. But...
...first I looked for Misty. I first happened upon her memorial one of the first times that I'd visited E. In Junior High she was a cheerleader, and had endeared to me by the fact that during gym class she had flashed her cheerleader trunks at me, and me directly. The next year she was transferred out, and fell out of memory. The only reason I remembered was her marker. 13 years ago.
I looked today, and couldn't find it. There was a picture imbeded in it too. I felt a little foolish. And got a smidgen misty. Then realized it was time to go home.
I crept up 69th to Freeway Blvd. (Quail St, Beard St, Palmer Lake Park where my Dad and I trained to go hiking in the Bridger/Teton's) past the industrial buildings (Which used to house "Zubaz"...before the irony) past the building which housed a seafood joint/Hispanic joint/Sports Bar (My first fear of shell fish came during my mom's birthday dinner and my dad pointed at the decorative mussell's and shook his head)
Super 8 is still there. So is Barnacle Bill's and the bowling alley (I had brunch with my dad and his old FBI/Sheriff's deputy buddies as recently as 2006...PS- Don't order egg beaters around them, lest you get strange looks) Then the freeway. Then Dowling.
