The Trip to Hacienda

My friend called me and invited me out for a drink at Hacienda last night. Even though it has been over four years since I lived here it is like second nature to drive the back roads. It is amazing how your body is on auto-pilot. I decided to take Brick to Auten all the way to Portage.  As I wound my way around I noticed how lush the trees are here in my little town in Indiana. Florida has its beautiful palms.  Indiana has it's evergreens. The trees had grown taller and houses that I had noticed being built had added features to their yards or for sale signs in them. It felt like yesterday that I had driven this route.

As I stopped at the corner of Ironwood and Auten I noticed the setting sun highlighting the decent of the hill on Auten. I felt a little like a kid going down a snowy hill on a flexible flyer. It was fun to speed up and let the car take the lead as I passed by the Clay Fire Department (which oddly looked closer to the road). I then passed the big yellow house, that as an adult, I dreamt of owning, not far from my friend Danielle's childhood home.  As I followed the turns around the corners, the street to the left that leads to Clay Highschool seemed smaller and more closed in. The vegetation seemed to have expanded while everything else shrunk in it's shadow. For a moment I thought about my children. If they were with me in the car they would remember this just as it is today. Never knowing what I saw twenty five years earlier as a teenager and yet now noticing the differences.  Now I understood when my mom would talk wistfully of her neighborhood back in New Jersey explaining things that had once been there but now weren't. You feel like part of you is gone and it's hard to explain that when someone hasn't seen what you've seen or done what you've done or known who you've known. You just know something is different or a part of your history is missing.

As I rolled to the next stop sign I came to the corner of the house that has the strange face. I don't know if others view a house like I do but I see a face when I look at the front of a home. The windows and door resemble the eyes the mouth and sometimes a nose.  This house has always been very strange to me. Looking at it from the front, the right window on the top is much larger than the rest.  The eye of this house has always seemed to have a palsey. I have always felt sorry for it. Plus this corner could be busy at times and it had that going against it too. There always seemed to be people living in it. However, for me I couldn't live in a house with an uneven face and with an added traffic problem. 

As I travelled over 31 continuing west, I went through the stoplight that if I took a left would lead past a neighborhood that used to have a couple of empty cul-de-sacs when I was in highschool.  I know this because this was the only place my boyfriend and I could be alone. I don't know how he found it but it was nice. I guess it's a teenage boy's job to scope out these things. There are homes on the cul-de-sacs now.

I passed St. Patrick's park and I was about to go on the bridge that crossed over the St. Joseph river. If I weren't meeting a friend I would have stopped and took some pictures. I have never done that. Maybe I will while I am still here. It looked beautiful and I couldn't believe I had never been on a boat on the St. Joe. What a perfect summer thing to do.

I passed by Lilac Rd and thought of my friend Micki's mom's house. I would love to see them but I haven't had a chance to catch up with them. Maybe when the kids get back.

I continued on passed a neighborhood we had once taken the kid's trick or treating then up the hill past the house with the giant, brick fortress for a fence that had to have cost more than the house itself in construction.  As I drove, I noticed the large, luxurious lawns.  My lawn in Florida is the size of a postage stamp and soon it wouldn't be mine at all. Florida grass is coarse and sharp. More like weeds. Plus the fear of snakes and fire ants keep people off of it.

Soon I was turning left onto Portage, almost to my destination. I passed the German Township fire department where we used to buy our Christmas trees and we also did a Stampin' Up class one Saturday morning. So many good memories.

Finally, I turned right into the parking lot of Hacienda which is across from a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Sonic.This used to be a forest. I pulled into a parking space in front of the restaurant.  I sat for a moment. I felt like I had just been on a tour.  I realized that this little town had given me a good and rich life. I was also grateful for all the small things. Over the years these qualities I noticed surrounded me in my every day life. What made impressions on me and how I came to recognize and link them to an important part of not only where I lived but who I was, what I liked and disliked and what I truly cared about. I'm glad that no matter what life has handed me I am still able to recognize and appreciate the little things. I take comfort in knowing that.  I shut the engine off and closed the car door. I knew I would take a different route home just to experience a few more of my favorite hometown sights.