Going Home Again was a creative writing assignment about going back in time while staying still.
Going Home Again
Driving past the large rectangular sign proclaiming Welcome to Shea Town, Home of the Wolverines, Population 9,325, my heart-inured to most everything-bumped in my chest. I began to sweat, despite the early-November chill that penetrated my shirt and sweater I was wearing. I could not believe how many different emotions where going through me. Going home again after 15 years was not going to be as easy as I had thought. In just one glimpse, all my emotions where pulsing through me, quicker then they had in the all the time I had lived in Denver.
About forty yards beyond the sign, I slowed down my rented dark green Volvo at a small, unassuming bungalow. The farmhouse that I had grown up; where I had lost my first tooth, hunted for Easter eggs in the tall grass that grows in the backyard, learned how to shoot hoops, milked cows and, feeding chickens. I pressed hard on the accelerator going past the farmhouse as fast as I could. I did not want to deal with that part of my past. Maybe, I could deal with my parents not being there any longer after a nice nights sleep in the town Inn.
In about five miles the town proper came into view-an image straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. It ornate three-story houses of brick or weathered clapboard nestled on streets of brick with maples and elms, providing a stately prelude to the business district. Once I'd loved the quite roadways with sparse traffic and just a few pedestrians strolling along at a lazy pace. Now when I leave my apartment in Denver, I run into scores of people.
At first glance, the town did not look like it had changed much. The book store, the main grocery, the shoe store, and the post office where all the same. But, as I got further down Main Street I saw that the library has gotten a face-lift. The library now had a new front entrance and a nice paint job. The doughnut shop next to the courthouse was now a Taco Bell. I now had to wonder what other changes the town had gone through
Driving past the large rectangular sign proclaiming Welcome to Shea Town, Home of the Wolverines, Population 9,325, my heart-inured to most everything-bumped in my chest. I began to sweat, despite the early-November chill that penetrated my shirt and sweater I was wearing. I could not believe how many different emotions where going through me. Going home again after 15 years was not going to be as easy as I had thought. In just one glimpse, all my emotions where pulsing through me, quicker then they had in the all the time I had lived in Denver.
About forty yards beyond the sign, I slowed down my rented dark green Volvo at a small, unassuming bungalow. The farmhouse that I had grown up; where I had lost my first tooth, hunted for Easter eggs in the tall grass that grows in the backyard, learned how to shoot hoops, milked cows and, feeding chickens. I pressed hard on the accelerator going past the farmhouse as fast as I could. I did not want to deal with that part of my past. Maybe, I could deal with my parents not being there any longer after a nice nights sleep in the town Inn.
In about five miles the town proper came into view-an image straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. It ornate three-story houses of brick or weathered clapboard nestled on streets of brick with maples and elms, providing a stately prelude to the business district. Once I'd loved the quite roadways with sparse traffic and just a few pedestrians strolling along at a lazy pace. Now when I leave my apartment in Denver, I run into scores of people.
At first glance, the town did not look like it had changed much. The book store, the main grocery, the shoe store, and the post office where all the same. But, as I got further down Main Street I saw that the library has gotten a face-lift. The library now had a new front entrance and a nice paint job. The doughnut shop next to the courthouse was now a Taco Bell. I now had to wonder what other changes the town had gone through