Going Home

      I am visiting my sister and brother-in law in the town next door to the place I grew up. It's part of the Rust Belt, where even 30 years ago (the last time I returned for an extended stay) the steel mills were closed and the economy was suffering. Wives were working two or three jobs to hold things together, while men who'd formerly labored in the mills hunted, fished, drank, and boasted that they'd never work for a mere $10 an hour.

      Now, it is hard to describe the desolation of the downtown area. The large department stores are gone. The local mainstay for shoppers where I worked in the credit department is now an outlet store. The bridge across which I walked to the bank carrying the day's deposit of cash and checks has been refurbished and I can no longer see the water through it. The local bank to which I walked (with my gun-toting bodyguard Don a few paces behind) has been subsumed by a mega-bank. 

      Even the suburban malls, which once held a promise of shiny new life, are shells of their former selves. Blacktop parking lots are punctuated by tufts of grass or weeds. 

      Some things are the same, though. The family that bought my parents' home, the house where I grew up, is taking good care of it. Flowers bloom, the porch is painted, and at night the porch light is on, as it was so many years ago.

      My youngest granddaughter is growing up a few blocks from the old place, in another family's once-treasured home. She likes her new house and her neighborhood. She has friends there. May she treasure this time when she is grown and revisits it.