You Really Can't Go Home Again-Reprint

(Since I have obviously been suffering from writers block lately....(All of my Escapades posts were written and scheduled a month ago ,so that blog doesn't count) I've decided to repost some of my favorite pieces from the early days of this blog...like this piece originally posted on August 19,2009)

The night before last, I was listening to some really good music from out of my pre-adolescent past... Issac Hayes, David Porter, Curtis Mayfield, Temptations, Chairman of the Board, Freda Payne, and an assortment of others who are long forgotten now, except by people of a certain age bracket. The music brought back some fond memories.

The next day, I loaded up my CD player in the car with Stevie Wonder's 1972 breakout album "Music Of My mind", The Main Ingredient's "Afrodisiac", Black Ivory's "Don't Turn Around", and then, I took off for work. The difference is, I didn't go my usual route. I drove through a neighborhood... an old neighborhood that I used to live in, used to hang out in, and used to feel pretty good in.

I know that I am dating myself by saying this but, the music sounded so much better in my car than it ever did when I had a record player (not a turntable but a record player) because the record ticked, popped, and pinged as it played. This music was from a certain summer, which I'm not going to talk about on this post, that was particularly nice. I had my first real girlfriend, I learned how to swim, and I started growing that summer, if you know what I mean (and I figure if you're over 13 years old, you do).

I rolled my car window down and I could almost smell the faint odors of pizza, hot dogs, and marijuana that was just beginning to be experimented with by some of my more "advanced" friends. We were becoming teenagers and the whole world seemed new. The music was good and the times were good.

The wonder of selective amnesia... I peered around at this neighborhood and a lot of the homes which had been so well kept were now boarded up. This was a tree-lined block and even the trees were gone. A lot of the "characters" I knew are now dead or, at least, not living around there anymore. The girls are now women with children and some are like me, grandparents by now.

 I liked taking the trip back down memory lane but, at the same time, I wouldn't trade all that I have learned and all that I have become to go back to that point in time again. It was just nice to remember it. You really can't go home again. You should only just drive by, look, smile, and keep going, as I did. So, I started my car, smiled, and pulled off towards the road that would lead me to my job.