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1995-10-27
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3KB
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51 lines
Copyright (c) 1995
YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN...
...'CAUSE WHILE YOU WERE GONE, THEY MOVED IT
One of the problems with my current profession is the amount
of time I have to spend on the road. I don't like to travel. Any
more than a couple of hours in a conveyance--whether it's a bus,
car, train, or plane--is annoying and uncomfortable. Once I get
where I'm going, I have to be professionally charming and competent
for a room full of strangers.
When vacation time comes, the last thing I want to do is go
somewhere. Staying home means no relaxation, though, so the best
thing I can do for a vacation is visit my family for a week.
My mother lives in a town so small it doesn't appear on a lot
of maps, and it's just a stone's throw from the small town I called
home for eighteen years. I went back there this year with the idea
of recapturing some memories to use in stories, but I discovered
something else entirely.
My hometown is gone. The address is the same, but it's not
the place where I grew up. It's smaller now, and dingier. A number
of the businesses have closed, many of the houses have been torn
down, and even the high school is gone. There was a grand old house
down the street from mine, with a hedge-enclosed backyard big
enough for two teams of boys to play baseball.
I got a black eye there, pitching one of those sandlot games.
It was a come-backer to the mound, sharply hit, and I didn't react
quickly enough. It hit me right in the head. It was neither my
first nor only black eye, but it was the only one that gave me any
feeling of satisfaction.
The hedge is gone, the house has been remodelled, and the
backyard is filled by two storage sheds. I looked at the place and
realized that most of the memories are gone, too. I suppose it was
a fool's errand, trying to recapture the pieces of a boy's life
more than twenty years past.
I suppose I've carried away some of the pieces of that town
as it was twenty years ago, and they've become a part of who and
what I am now. The evidence of those days is gone now, and only
the eyewitnesses remain. As the years pass, they will dwindle in
number. One day, no one will remember Newman, Illinois of the
sixties and seventies--and it won't matter.
***
Life here and now goes on, though, and so does Ruby's Pearls.
Del's dishing up another dandy collection of works, so sit back and
enjoy.
Thank goodness Ruby never lived in Newman...
--Michael Hahn
Assistant Editor