Memory Lane

To you, this is just a picture of a house. To me, it was my home for 4 years. Believe it or not, there were 2 giant trees that framed the driveway in the section closest to the road. I loved sitting under them in summer to find reprieve from the hot sun. I also collected leaves from the ground and the branches to use as money for the make-believe market my sister and I set up with our toys. Yes, their roots affected the sidewalk and may have even begun to break up the road. Maybe this is the reason they got rid of them.

In the summer, I enjoyed mowing the lawn and earning a few bucks from my folks for the work. In winter, I shoveled the snow from the driveway. I would make piles of snow in which I would later build tunnels to crawl through. I spent time practicing playing the clarinet in the garage. When we wanted to dance in the driveway, we would place a boombox in the windows above the garage to blast music outdoors. I remember the day my sister shattered one of the windows. Our parents were not home, and we knew we were going to be in a lot of trouble once they came home. One day, we left 3 of our bikes by the stairs as we ran inside to eat lunch. Hoping to get back to riding around the neighborhood afterwards, we were devastated to find the bikes were gone. We never did find out what happened to them. There was a wood fence around the backyard that has been removed.

These are just a few of the memories that I remember right away as I look at this house. It is interesting how one image can bring back all the memories of the past. I took this photo recently, as I drove through town. Many things have changed, yet surprisingly, a lot of it has remained the same, especially in my memory.