Taking a Walk

So. I took my car for the new radio this morning, and while it was being done, I took a walk.

I am fairly certain that I did not recently write about one of my happiest childhood memories, although I was thinking about it recently. If I Peter Pan were to sprinkle fairy dust on me, this is the thought that would make me fly. If I were at Hogwarts, this is what would conjure me a Patronus.

I grew up on a street that was three blocks long; we lived near the end of the middle block. The first block rose up a little towards the highway that is one of the main roads through Bizarro Town. The bus from New York City uses this highway as its major route through town. When I was small, I was not permitted to go off of the second block, and certainly not up to the highway.

But if I knew that my grandparents were coming to visit, I roamed the limits of my block, looking hopefully up towards the highway. I knew that after they stepped down off the bus, they would appear at the crest of the street, at which point I would be free to run up to them, taking a package from one, perhaps, as I danced excitedly beside them while they walked wearily towards my house. They were always burdened with bags and packages and suitcases; it was Grandma Ida's way of life. My happy moment would be the instant I saw their recognizable figures come into view.

So the car audio place I went to was on the highway, where it intersects with the street of my childhood home. I put on my headphones, turned on my iPod, and turned right out of their parking lot, which put me at the crest of the hill, suddenly a player on the other side in my childhood memory.

I walked down the street, all the way down to the third block. Once I hit the second, though, I could look at each house and remember the people who lived there long ago. The names did not always come to me, but the faces did. My parents' best friends lived near the end of the third block; they had helped my parents find the house to buy. I spent a lot of time here.

At the end of the third block, I looked across the street and saw an empty lot -- still empty; there's a huge drainage ditch here -- where we played all the freaking time as we got older. I took a left, and came up the last two blocks of the street next to mine. I passed the house where my third grade teacher lived. I passed the house where I babysat when I was a teenager.

Before I came up the third block, though, I turned right, passed one house, and saw this before me:



So, they finally put a cut-through in the fence. I always just climbed over it.



Trees? Why would you put trees right in the middle of the playground? Hey, when I was a kid, this school was jammed; we would have run headlong into trees in the middle of the playground for sure. I guess the population's a little thinner now.



This is just a piss-poor imitation of the backstop I used to climb. For one thing, there's no actual ball field anymore; it's mostly overgrown, so I guess they're not expecting much ball playing here. The town leagues don't use this field to play on. And is it just me, or is the backstop a lot shorter than it used to be?



The building to the right is the new addition. It used to be one big open field, but now, this building breaks it up. There's still a little playground on the other side of it.



The two story building on the left is the original school, built in 1923. Not only did I go to elementary school here, the MIL is a graduate as well.



You're wondering what this is. It's the faint outline of a white dodgeball circle that's been painted over. I don't know that dodgeball has been banned here in Bizarro Town as it has in many other places, but I guess it's not encouraged. They used to paint these circles on the ground so that a class could come outside for recess or phys. ed. and have a specific place to play.

What makes this dodgeball circle special? In fact, it's the specific spot in the circle I was standing on to take the picture that rang the bell of my memory. This is the spot I was standing on when our fifth grade teacher told us that President Kennedy had been shot.

I moved on. I hit the Dunkin Donuts, and then went back to the car shop, where the guy had finished early (!) and my car was ready. Nice little radio, not too expensive. Too many buttons, though.

And I finally got the new car inspected this afternoon, the bastards. There was NO LINE, but it still took a half hour for a five minute inspection, because the line my car was on just stopped dead with no one working it for about twenty minutes. On the other lines, five people who came in after me left before I did.

It was an interesting day.

WATCHING DR. PHIL :: ENTRY #1580