This same thing happens to me on vacations or trips, especially the sort where I visit family and friends I haven't seen in a long while. The anchors of my history are pretty deep, and going to check on them causes me to relive years of memories, often in the span of a few hours or days.
L and I took a trip last week to Pittsburgh (by way of Hagerstown, MD), where we stayed with some of her friends. Our time in Hagerstown was spent visiting her mountain—we resolved to come back in the fall when the leaves had turned—and picking strawberries:
We proceeded to OSU to visit campus and relive a few of my moments there. We passed the old stanky apartment building and visited the German House—site of not a few happy and miserable memories for me.
The House is missing the old bookshelf, unfortunately. The residents are only permitted two years' living there, now, though the cost of tuition has gone down. There is a new flat panel TV that has replaced the ageing CRT we used to have. The wood-slat blind is still the same, the one that we got when it fell down my first year there. The experience of one of the residents was the same as mine—the chemistry from the first year just didn't last, and the second and third were not as nice. I met the girl living in the closet and told her that was my loft bed...and that yes, I hit my head on the fan.
We headed down the street to see the rejuvenation of South Campus and the new Ohio Union. We didn't actually enter the building (Mr C tells me it's architecturally terrible anyway) since we had some other things to do. This included buying myself a new T-Shirt, and one for the Doof as well. Our versions were getting pretty old and ratty. Unfortunately the B&N there sells them at roughly 4x the price of the original shirts I bought for us. Strangely enough, they were playing Jesus is Still Alright.
We walked through campus and visited the library next. It has been completely renovated, and it's no longer totally scary. The top level permits a good view of the entire campus; it's built mostly of glass, it seems, and the stacks are well-lit instead of Frank-Lloyd-Wright-sized hallways.
Dreese was closed, so we didn't get a chance to go see my old boss or office; we were there during the break between quarters, anyway. Graduation was that Sunday. We completed the circuit through the Oval and visited Mirror Lake, and I showed her the underbrush I used to hide in when I was super-tired. It is grown out quite a bit now.
We proceeded from there to near Dayton, visiting the Fs for dinner. They had forgotten we were coming, but we arrived at just the right time for them to put a little more on for us. The kids were so excited we were there. The Doof got off work after a bit of a stressful day and supped with us a little later. We hung out until about 10:30 or so, and then she took L back to her apartment half an hour up the road.
S gave us some of her paintings; I took one for Mom and one for myself to hang in the house. If G doesn't claim the other, Dad will have a nice one, too, that he'll be pleased to display.
I spent the night at the Fs. In the morning, they sent me off with a full breakfast (chocolate chip pancakes and eggs!), a magic trick (A was happy to show me), and M and D trying to put me in "jail" (a couch) and not let me leave. They wanted me to stay "forever." I told them it would be a little while before that.
I got to Riverside a little late. The chairs are the same, the smells are the same, and the people are mostly the same, too. In some respects, the visit was very difficult. Not only did a lot of people want to talk to me and the Doof and L, but they had aged (some very visibly). Mr W in particular misses his wife and is mostly just waiting for his time to come.
He was sitting next to Mrs W (another W, natch), the one who had given E the bunny I appropriated and whose fur I plucked out to make him live (a la The Velveteen Rabbit). When I was a little tyke I'd tell him stories in my bed when I had a hard time falling asleep. I did not get a chance to introduce her to L, but we did have a short chat. I will send her a little note among many I have to send yet.
Pastor C had hurt his back while lifting some equipment; a cortisone shot helped relieve the pain, but it returned and he didn't think he would be able to stand to preach on Sunday. So his son took the pulpit while we were there.
Mr R has ALS, and it rapidly progressed in the span of a few months to take his rich baritone. He seems to be handling the changes gracefully. Mr J is suffering from cancer, walking around with a persistent chemo drip. For awhile the cure was worse than the disease, and so he stopped taking medication—but when the cancer didn't kill him, he thought perhaps a different regimen would be okay. Mr M found two tumors in his kidney during a CAT scan after he passed a gall stone, and he'll have the vessels surrounding them ablated. Mrs S is in bad shape; I saw her husband, with whom I may have exchanged roughly two sentences during my years there, and he greeted me warmly. He had a beard, which I naturally commented on. Mr R—a different one—is likely in his final days of cancer; he is a dear friend to my folks. He's in Florida now, and his daughters and sons-in-law have opportunity to visit on occasion.
I also regretted not seeing Mr H, the quirky used-bookstore owner who had also taken out George Steinbrenner's trash. He was in the hospital with an undisclosed ailment. I will probably send him a postcard—an irony, since that is basically what he does. He used to give them to M and me during hymns so that we would have something to look at.
I chatted briefly with some other family friends: my finance guy, P, and his father (who is my father's finance guy); the C's, whose sons are all playing the vagabond this summer, it seems; Mr B, who told me to call him by his first name (I told him in response that if Dad ever heard me do that, he would take me out back and beat me with his shoe);
Dear souls, all. The Doof, L, and I ate with M's folks for lunch. We ate at Bravo's, one of the usual places, and chatted about family and other things. Mr C is under a bit of stress. With the graduation of Riverside's ranks, and the likely departure of its pastor in the near future, I think he is feeling a bit of responsibility for the well-being of the flock in the near term. Mrs C is being mercilessly worked by the USPS—60-hour weeks and no vacation except Christmas Day. It has been a difficult time for her, I think, too.
Regardless, we had good conversation and a delightful time fellowshiping together. It was over too soon, but we had to make tracks in order to get the rest of the days' work done.
After lunch, the three of us went to see the old house. It is run down and poorly kept:
The good news is that the neighborhood has undergone something of a renaissance since my last visit, and the rest of the homes are well maintained with good lawns. We spent a little bit of time there reminiscing about reading in the trees (tall enough to be inconvenient to climb; they have grown with me) and the changes in the house (a new fence, trees cut down, et c.).
Thereafter, the Doof went back to her place and L and I grabbed a quick drink at Starbucks before heading up to Michigan's middle finger and a visit to Gram's.
The drive itself was fairly uneventful; it was longer, I think, than L anticipated—she asked several times if we were in Michigan yet. Regardless, we made it in fairly good time. Uncle J was there, much to my pleasant surprise, and he drove us all out to Olive Garden (one of Gram's favorites, I think) for a late dinner.
We kibbutzed a little about the family again, this time about M and J and their families, and did the usual back-and-forth about UM and OSU and how awesome OSU is compared to UM. Basically he conceded every point and was thisclose to saying he was no longer a UM fan. (I exaggerate, but only just a little bit.)
All too soon it was time for bed: L took the guest quarters (Gram rented them out for us) and I slept in the guest bedroom. The next morning was a quick repack and reorganization of the car, some breakfast, and out the door at 9:30.
We got back home around 7:00. The drive was mostly unremarkable save for a couple bad spots of rain. We had some construction that forced me to gas up sooner than I wanted to. The breaks were actually pretty carefully planned so that Gram would have an opportunity to get up and stretch her legs and work out some of the cramps. Construction crimped the plans, since we could have gotten stranded if we were forced bumper-to-bumper for awhile, and so I had to stop nearly an hour earlier than I wanted for gas.
Gram was nonetheless a trooper, and we managed to get through it okay, including a few RadioLab shows. The content in a few was really quite questionable, and so we nearly had to fast forward through some embarrassing segments. We listened to a few Philemon sermons, too, which was nice, and had some short discussion.
Gram and L fought about who would sit up front, and it was decided that Gram would sit up front the first leg and then L took the second two. It was tough for them both, but I confess a bit of private amusement here. They are strong-willed women with different views on the best way to honor one's elders.
In any case, we made it back in one piece, arriving to a full table with brisket, potatoes, and veggies. Mom did well.
It was a good trip, but emotionally draining. Visiting all of these places really covered most of my life span and a wide array of memories, both good and bad. It was impossible to tell L everything, and even this writing is quite beggarly by comparison. I'm glad we took off Tuesday after, since the recovery time has stretched even to today.
If you're still here, the rest of the story of the past month has been mainly taken up by dan testing. This is my last test ever, at least I hope so, and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll have some clean video after the test is over.
I'm doing four breaking stations: jump spinning back (three boards), one-inch punch (one board), triple side (three boards), and a split axe (two boards). This is the only part of the test I'm really worried about. I'm also worried about knife defense, but I think I can pass that without going too nuts. Got to get some good meat and carbs and such for this week...the test is upon us!
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