Going home...

Who says you can never go home again? Maybe not to live there, but you can drive by anyway. This is the house I grew up in in Illinois. Much has changed since I lived there over thirty four years ago. The trees are bigger for one thing. I was sad to see that the willow and cherry trees had been cut down in the backyard. I can remember picking cherries for a pie and eating most of them before I even got inside. There is now a deck and pool where that tree once stood. Our house was a similar shade of blue, but the window box (I can't think of what they're called) is new. We also had a gas light in the front. I spent millions of hours doing gymnastics in that front yard.

Above is the street where my friend, Missi lived. It was two blocks over from my house. Everyone hung out here. We rode our Schwinn sting-ray bikes up and down and played "ding dong ditch" on that street. I love how the trees have grown so they form a canopy. Below is Missi's house. Nothing has changed at all. I slept over at least a couple of nights a week, so it was practically my second home. We spent hours sitting on the shag carpet of her bedroom making "Fun Flowers". There was this liquid goop that you poured into molds. You then heated it up in an oven of sorts. It was made by Mattel, and there was also a "Creepy Crawler" version. It's amazing that we didn't burn the house down.

Now here is a place that I will never forget, Katy's Market. It was at the end of Missi's street. It was owned by an elderly German couple. The store was cluttered and crowded and reeked of sauerkraut and homemade sausage. It was actually kind of scary. The owners didn't like kids much. I think we were all afraid we would end up in one of those meat grinders that they used for their sausages. We went in after school anyway, because they had the best assortment of candy. You just chose fast and got the heck out of there.

Thanks for coming along on my trip down memory lane.