Can You Ever Truly Go "Home" Again?

It seems the week is flying by so fast. I am not complaining...not in the slightest. Sometimes I just cannot believe that the time moves faster and faster. What happened to those long dog days of summer when I was a kid? Do you remember those days? They are the ones you think will never end.

I think that this post will be something new for me. I want to tell you a little about my childhood. I don't really know why I am going to do this, but it could be fun.

I am a child of the 80s and 90s.

In 1982, my parents divorced, and my mother moved out of the house. I was only 5. My brother was 3. I remember the months leading up to the divorce to be awful, especially for a 4 or 5 year old. I remember my parents arguing about this or that. They would get loud. I can recall one specific time that they were in the kitchen fighting. I was there, too. They did not know I was there. I was under the kitchen counter hiding in the corner. (It is a spot next to the cabinets which makes it a very hidden area.) I remember just being curled up in the corner listening to them argue. What I remember most is just sitting there crying to myself. I blamed myself for thier fights and their divorce. Before anyone says anything...I know now that it was not my fault, but to a 5 year old it is their fault.

My dad was the one to raise me and my brother. We lived in an incredible subdivision that was picture perfect for any child living there. Our subdivision had 20 houses in it. My house was dead-center of the subdivision. Every other house had a swimming pool. Almost every house had children in it my age. There were, in total, about 30 - 35 children growing up in that subdivision. At the edge of the subdivision we all had access to the lake and an area we called "the woods." I spent so many years there growing up in that neighborhood.

I remember getting married there in 3rd grade. My "wife" (Bridget) was in 5th grade. Yes, an older woman! We even had a house next door to her parents' house. Okay, it was a one-room playhouse that her father had constructed earlier that summer.

I remember playing hide-n-seek on many summer nights. We would all start in my yard, but we would eventually expand it into the entire neighborhood. My favorite spot to hide...in the shadow of this giant pine tree in our yard. I would lay on the ground in the shadow. It was the best because no one ever expected it.

One Christmas, Santa (aka my Dad) brought my brother and I a pair of three-wheel Honda ATVs. (We had a Honda 125 and a Honda 200) They were the best. We rode those for years and years. We eventually carved out numerous riding trails in "the woods." It was the perfect place to ride the three-wheelers. It was out of the way of all the neighbors, and we were left alone just to be kids.

The woods became the neighboorhood children's sanctuary. After we had all the trails cleared and formed, we would spend numerous hours in there just riding bikes, camping, hikings, etc. How fortunate was I to have this area of nature that we all could escape to, and a place for our imaginations to run wild when playing games.

My best friends growing up were my neighbors. We were a tight-knit group. We all spent uncountable hours, days, weeks, months, and years of our lives together. We were all like a big family. If that were the case, then my father was the biggest kid of them all.
  
I mentioned that every other house had a swimming pool. That is 100% accurate. What I failed to mention is that all the kids in the neighborhood ended up in my pool. I guess since my house was the center of the subdivision, it became the community center. If you were ever looking for your children, always call my house first. Dad was probably already feeding us all by grilling hamburgers or hotdogs. At that point, the neighbors would bring tomatoes, lettuce, canteloupe, and watermelon from their garden. The party would begin.

I remember just laying in the middle of the road in the center of the neighborhood on summer nights. Just a bunch of neighborhood kids laying there looking up at the stars and talking about things kids talked about then. (Remember, this was STILL the age on innocence.)  If any of you are wondering if we ever got run over...NO. Cars that would come into our subdivision were always someone we knew, and they knew to look down the hill at the center of the subdivision to see if their son or daughter was lying in the road. There was only one road into the neighborhood, and it was the same road out.

During the school year, we would all meet at the top of the hill (the entrance to the subdivision) every morning and wait for George to bring the school bus to us. George drove bus #20, and we rode that bus with him every year up until high school. We were always the first kids on the bus at 7 in the morning, and we were the last kids to get off the bus at 4:15 in the afternoon. We loved it!

Oh, and do you remember when the original Nintendo came on the market? I do. I begged and begged my dad for the Nintendo. Our neighbor, Keith, had one. He would bring it across the street to our house when he would babysit my brother and I. Super Mario Brothers was THE game. We finally got one for Christmas, and again all the kids would congregate at our house to play.

I grew up with a grandfather who loved to fish. He taught me everything I ever needed to know about fishing. So, as a kid I loved to go fishing. (What southern-bred, American boy didn't like fishing?) Having a subdivision on the edge of the lake provided a prime fishing spot at all times. My friends and I would gather our fishing poles, tackle boxes, etc and head for the lake. We would stop in the woods to dig up worms for bait. We would just sit on the banks and fish for hours...never catching anything more than a blue-gill or a small-mouth bass. We didn't care what we caught. It was just fun being around your friends.

I forgot to mention the fields behind my cousin Melinda's house. She lived just above the subdivision at the top of the hill. Behind her house was acres upon acres of rolling fields. In the spring we would run to the fields and fly the kites. There were no trees, powerlines, or roads to get in our way.

As I look back on my childhood, I think back to how innocent life really was. I guess the old saying is true: "Ignorance is Bliss." Well, we were definitely blissful all the time in our neighborhood. Life was so much simpler then. And, yes, it was the 80s and early 90s.

Like all good things, it had to come to an end. It started with us selling our house and moving out. We needed a bigger house when dad remarried. After we left, others left too. I guess we were the lynchpin in the center of the neighborhood.  It was never the same.

Sometimes, when I am in town visiting my family, I will make a trip to the neighborhood just to see how it has changed and how it has not. The same houses are still there. There is one new house, but it is owned by one of the original neighbors in the "hood." He built his new house in his field, just across the street from his former house. He built it for his wife. Go figure!

Obviously, all of the kids I grew up with have left and live their own lives now. There are a few of the old neighbors still in their houses. I go over to Jim and Linda's house to talk to them, and I will sit in their living room and just stare at my former home across the street.

My former home looks very similar to the way we left it. It is still yellow, maybe a creamier shade (better). The massive pine tree is gone. Was told it fell over one night in a bad thunderstorm. The pool that my dad, my brother, and I put in when we lived there and the fences are still there. The windows have been changed. The garage, once converted into a gameroom, has been returned to a garage. It still looks good.

How funny are the memories that we can hold on to for so many years of our lives. This is my "happy place" when I need to go there in my mind.

Thanks for taking a ride down memory lane with me.

PS. I know that some of this sounds too good to be true. Honestly, this was my life growing up. (Not a fairy tale...a true story!)