You can't go home again
11:46PM on May 12, 2009
I had the opportunity to go back to the neighborhood, I grew up in, the other day. It has changed so much in the past 8 years since I was last there.
Let me tell you this, to begin my story. 10 years ago we had a devastating flood. My old neighborhood was pretty much under 15 feet of water from the runoff and the creek over flowing it's banks.
I stopped in to see my Mom's old friend. She lives three doors down from Mom's old house. We sat on her porch and talked for a bit before she asked me what I thought about the city did to the old homestead. I have to admit when I saw what had happened I was shocked. I know the city had sent a letter to the family to let us know what was going to happen. It is a different thing to see what happened to the house I called home for 19 years.
The city had torn down the house!!!!
It seemed so strange to pull into the driveway and have nothing but the trees still standing. I can remember the house, garage, the garden, Mom's prize rosebushes..... all bulldozed away. The one thing that set my mind at peace was the stone marker, where we laid my sisters dog to rest, was still standing by the back fence.
I looked at the old pecan tree in the backyard. I sat under that tree, many an hour, and taught myself how to play a few songs on my guitar. I parked under the cottonwood tree that my oldest brother had carved his initials in. I remembered how we would put towels on our shoulders and pretend to be super hero's and jump off the garage roof to save the city from all evildoers.
As I walked around I picked up a few bits and pieces of a past gone by. Old bottle caps, a piece of train track, some square nails. All junk to the crew that demolished the house and garage. The square nails were brought home from a job my Dad had done in the late 60's. I remember Dad telling me the story of how the nails were made by the owner, of the house he had worked on, back in the 1890's.
The last time I set foot on this property was to put plywood on all the doors and windows to keep the kids and drug dealers out. We had planned on rebuilding the house but my Mom started getting sick. After another year or so we pretty much gave up on the old house. Mom and my sisters had moved into a new place. My older sister is trying to find a buyer for the property. Until then it sits holding the memories of summers running in the sprinklers, playing ball in the backyard, the fortress of superhero's and a a beloved rose garden tended by the most gental lady I will ever know.
As they say...You cant go home again....
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