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In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations. It is cold, half- French, and difficult to stir.
— Stuart Keate
So when I said last time that I hoped it wouldn’t take me two weeks to blog the next leg of our vacation, what I really meant was, “See you in 6 weeks!” Sorry.
Anyway, we left Buffalo Thursday morning – another beautiful day – and headed north. We crossed the border with no problem and checked into our hotel, which was connected to the Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays would play that night. We immediately set out on foot for the Hockey Hall of Fame; David’s been wanting to go there for a long time. Of course, I made him pose for pictures:
But I got in on it too!
There was so much to see, but the crown jewel is the Stanley Cup, which we got our picture taken with:
Then we wandered our way around town a bit before heading back toward our hotel and the CN Tower. This is what it looks like from the ground:
Wow, right? Well, we decided to go to the top. David, who is afraid of heights, was a good sport on the way up, even though the elevator has glass peephole in the floor:
But that was nothing compared to the glass floor at the top, which freaked even me out:
There were a ton of kids up there, and none of them were scared; they were lying all over the glass floor, face down, or running back and forth all over it. I could barely look down, but I forced myself to walk across the glass part once.
Then we took in the view, which was amazing.
I took a panoramic “stitch” shot with my camera, but I don’t actually know how to stitch them together to show you (that’s part of #78 on my list – learn three features of my digital camera; haven’t gotten around to it yet!) so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
We headed back to the hotel for a few minutes to rest before heading downstairs, out the door, and around the corner to the baseball stadium to see the hometown Toronto Blue Jays take on the Evil Empire, aka the New York Yankees.
With apologies to Karen, who is a Red Sox fan, here are some photos of some famous Yankees:
Jeter
Rodriguez
Damon
Posada
Our seats were about 4 rows up from the field. At one point, A-Rod chased a pop up into foul territory and ran smack into a Canadian police woman. What’s awesome about that? Well, in one of those pictures, you can sort of see me and David! Here, I’ll show you:
Great, right? We’re famous! Anyway, the game was just ok, really, and the Yankees trounced the Jays, but I was psyched to complete my goal of seeing three games in three different stadiums.
All in all, I really enjoyed our trip. We definitely did not have enough time to do everything we wanted to do, so we are planning a return trip at some point. You can check out the rest of my Toronto pictures on Flickr, if you like!
A journey is best measured in friends, not in miles.
– Tim Cahill
So when we last left off, David and I had collapsed into bed in our beautiful European-inspired hotel room in Chicago. That was Monday night. Tuesday morning we prepared to head back to Detroit. I had hoped to somehow meet up with Jane on our way out of town, but she had her own adventure to tend to, so we didn’t get the chance. Instead, David drove us along Lake Shore Drive to head out of the city on another beautiful day in Chicago so I could see the waterfront and Soldier Field and Comiskey Park (which isn’t called Comiskey Park anymore, but whatever). It was lovely. We stopped for breakfast at what David tells me is the only rest stop (anywhere?) that’s built on an overpass (that is, it serves both sides of the big highway). He tried to win me a Nintendo DS from a game machine, but didn’t have any luck. Oh well.
By the time we got back to Detroit, we had just enough time to change and grab the tickets and David’s brother and head downtown to Comerica Park to watch the Tigers take on the hated Cleveland Indians. I had walked around the outside of Comerica at Christmastime, but this was my first time inside. I immediately went to the team store to purchase a Tigers visor so I could credibly root for the home team (and without betraying my Braves – the Tigers are in the AL).
We walked around the stadium so I could see everything, and I even got the boys to ride the mini baseball Ferris wheel with me!
I also got a half-yard frozen daquiri, but that is neither here nor there. We then got a beer and something to eat (I had egg rolls. Egg rolls! At a baseball stadium! And chili-cheese fries. Breakfast of champions.) before settling into our seats.
David’s dad snared excellent seats down the right field line off Stub Hub, and during warm ups, I looked up and who did I see? One Grady Sizemore, centerfielder for the Indians, stretching and jogging not 20 yards from me! He’s hot, let me tell you.
Once David figured out what I was doing, he tried to take my camera away, but I didn’t let him. It’s my duty to take pictures of hot baseball players, and I take that responsibility very seriously.
The game itself was great – the Tigers won – and we headed home to do a little laundry and fall in to bed.
Wednesday morning, we packed up and got back in the car, this time headed for a little town just northeast of Buffalo, New York. My cousin was to be married Saturday, and Wednesday evening was her bridal shower (she, and a lot of wedding guests, was from out of town, but nearly the entirety of our moms’ side of the family lives in this town, which is why the shower was there and so close to the wedding). Since she had asked me to be in her wedding, I needed to be at the shower that evening, so we left around 9 or so and headed for the border. The Canadian border.
As David is fond of telling me, if you head due south from Detroit, the first foreign country you come to is Canada. Going through Canada would save us several hours, assuming the border crossing didn’t take long, and time was of the essence that day, so with our passports in hand, we made a quick entrance into the Great White North.
We had a lovely Canadian day. First, we had breakfast at Tim Horton’s. Donuts, yum. Then we stopped at Canadian Tire. It’s hard to explain Canadian Tire – it’s a little like a KMart crossed with an auto parts store, I guess, but David has been talking about it as long as I’ve known him, so we had to go.
We found Canada t-shirts there, on sale for $8.99 (or “Nine dough-lers” as David was fond of saying), red for him, white for me. Then we stopped for lunch at Harvey’s, a Canadian fast food joint. This one was located inside a Home Depot. Thank goodness for GPS. Our burgers were delicious, and people in Canada are so friendly!
We made an equally smooth entrance back into the U.S., and made our way through the Western New York countryside on a gorgeous afternoon, and I honestly don’t know if there’s any better place to be. We got to my aunt’s around 3:30 and David encountered the first wave of family introductions. The shower was girls-only, so I left him there to await my uncle, the District Attorney, who had agreed to take David and Steve (the boyfriend of one of the other bridesmaids) out to dinner. He was not happy that I couldn’t be there for the introductions; I’m sure he had Sopranos-like visions of my Italian uncle picking him and “going for a ride,” but he was a good sport.
The shower was lovely; my aunts did an amazing job, as always. Afterwards, my cousin and I and one of the bridesmaids went to find the boys in town. We walked into the restaurant only to see my grandpa holding court at their table. I hadn’t expected him to be there, but I should have guessed he would be. We attempted to pull up a table to their booth to join them, but the waitresses stopped us, which was not a good idea. My grandpa doesn’t like to be told no. Next thing you know, the wait staff is dealing with an ornery old man, and my cousin and I are laughing our heads off because this is so typical. I think David might have been scared, though.
In the end, we took the booth behind them, and my grandpa came to sit with us for a bit. He told me how much he’d enjoyed talking to David and how glad he was that I’d brought him. Made me so happy. One of my aunts showed up and then the 6 of us – me and David, my cousin, my aunt, the bridesmaid and her boyfriend – headed to the only bar in town to catch up some more and play some darts. And with the exception of the boys, I can tell you that all of us are supremely bad dart players.
It was, however, a lot of laughs. I love my family, and I love how seamlessly David fits into it.
Around 11, we headed back to my aunt’s house where we were staying and fairly collapsed into bed, again. First, though, we had to repack a small bag, because in the morning, we were headed back to Canada: Toronto. I’ll tell you all about Day 7 next time (which, hopefully, will not be two weeks from now)!
I had a total 36-hour love affair with Chicago. It started with our hotel, the Raffaello, where we got a great last-minute rate on hotels.com, especially considering how close it is to Michigan Avenue. It was very European (fairly small lobby, very small elevators), but we had a beautiful room with a flat screen tv and DVD player. My favorite part was the bathroom: it had one of those rain shower heads, where the water falls directly down on top of you; there was no tub, only a shower, and only half a glass door – part of the shower (the part away from the showerhead) was completely open to the rest of the bathroom; and it had a bowl sink, one of those that sits up on the counter. Perfect.
Since we arrived close to 1 am, we slept in a bit on Monday before heading over to Michigan Avenue to see the sights and head down to Navy Pier. It was a gorgeous day, and it wasn’t too long until we came across people engaged in what has to be one of the top-ten jobs I don’t want:
Skyscraper window-washing. NO. WAY.
We hung a left to head toward Navy Pier. The first time and only time prior to this that I had been in Chicago was 10 years ago, when the amusement park I worked for was going to open a Bubba Gump’s in the park. They sent me and my boss to the Bubba Gump’s in Navy Pier for training, since I would be managing the restaurant. Here it is:
Navy Pier is pretty touristy, but I wanted to ride the giant Ferris wheel, because I like being touristy, so we pressed on. Before we got to the Ferris wheel, though, we passed several outfits offering boat tours and decided that would be a great way to see the city. We opted for the SeaDog Architectural Tour that would take us down the Chicago River through the city and tell us about some of the buildings we’d see, and it included a “speedboat portion” out on Lake Michigan at the end. It was totally worth it – we learned all about the big buildings, many of which are quite iconic, and our tour guide was very funny (and punny, too!). There are too many pictures to share here, but you can check out my Chicago album on Flikr if you like. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
By the time we got back, it was lunchtime, so we set off in search of some authentic deep-dish pizza. We eschewed Uno’s in favor of Gino’s East which I had seen on our drive in the night before, and after consulting the GPS on David’s BlackBerry, we made it there without any trouble. It takes a looooong time to cook deep-dish, so we had an appetizer while we waited and I wrote “Melanie loves David” amidst all the (management-sanctioned) graffiti on the walls. The pizza was DEFinitely worth the wait – it was SO good and really hit the spot.
We had hoped to hit Millennium Park, but lunch took longer than we thought, so we just took a short walk back to the hotel to rest a bit before the game. David, who seems to know how to everywhere no matter where we are, led us to the El, where we hopped a train to Wrigley Field. I was SO excited – it’s one of the stadiums I’ve really wanted to go to (when I was in Chicago before, the Cubs were out of town, so we saw the White Sox and what was then Comiskey Park). I had to get the iconic shot, of course:
Then we headed inside. I really loved this stadium. Everyone was so friendly, and although it was packed (Cubs fans are die-hard, you know), it didn’t feel busy – the lines for concessions and bathrooms were not long at all. The only sad part was no Dippin’ Dots. David and I get Dippin’ Dots at every baseball game we go to, and Wrigley was the first we’ve encountered that didn’t have them. Oh well.
(David is not betraying his Tigers – he buys a hat of the home team at every stadium he goes to. He even has a Yankees cap. Boo.)
Oh, if you don’t follow baseball, you might not know that a seat at Wrigley Field can be a tough get. Some enterprising homeowners have made it a little easier:
That’s rooftop seating on Waveland Avenue, which runs behind left field. Clever, huh? There’s also a bunch behind right field.
Ok, maybe the best thing about Wrigley Field, for me, was the rediscovery of something I first saw (and haven’t seen since) at Comiskey Park 10 years ago:
It’s onion grinder for your hot dog! Fresh onion! Right there in Wrigley! David thinks I’m silly, but I dig this so much!
Unfortunately, the Cubbies went down to the Astros, but a good time was definitely had by all.
We took the El back, but intentionally switched trains to ride a little longer and see what we could see before heading back to the hotel. We pretty much collapsed into (the awesome, comfortable) bed when we got back, so that’s really all there is to tell for now!
Day 5 is heading back to Detroit and the Tigers game, and Day 6 has us crossing the border into Canada on our way to Buffalo, so check back later this week to continue our journey!
One day, Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Chesire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
– from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Where to begin? I can’t even keep track of all the great stuff we did and saw.
We left for Detroit on Friday morning and arrived somewhere around 6pm. On the way, somewhere in Ohio, we passed the Happy Hooker Bait Shop, which made me giggle for about a mile. We also stopped at a place we discovered on the way home from Detroit at Christmas: Beef Jerky Unlimited. And it’s just what it sounds like: barrels and barrels of all types and flavors of jerky, though not just beef – they have pork and turkey jerky (hee) too. Here’s a picture from Christmas:
The sign on the door prohibited pictures, so I can’t show you the awesomeness inside. I did take a picture of the sign, though.
Friday night, we went bowling with David’s best friend from home. Despite my fancy purple bowling shoes, I only broke 100 once in three games. But at least there was beer.
On Saturday, we went to The Henry Ford. We only had enough time to tour the museum, but they have some great stuff. Unfortunately, the pictures are on David’s computer at the moment, so I can’t show you the museum-worthy Ford Taurus. Maybe later. The best part of the whole museum, though, is the Dymaxion House. I want one of these round, aluminum houses so much. Sadly, Mr. Fuller’s financing fell through and only one of them was ever actually built. The Graham family lived in the house, but they built around it so it looked like this. They eventually donated it to The Henry Ford Museum, and my dreams of living in it are forever dashed. Boo.
Saturday night we headed to Dave & Busters with David’s friends for some fun games. I had never played table shuffleboard (or whatever it’s called) before, but it was fun. Must put that on the list of things to have in the game room of our fantasy house. David kicked my butt in air hockey, despite my best trash talk. We amassed somewhere in the neighborhood of 3500 tickets that night, but we opted not to cash any in – they didn’t have anything good in the prize room.
Sunday we had a birthday lunch for David with his dad’s family, which was lovely. After, we played some games with his brother and step-mom, including Clue, which I haven’t played in ages. David won 3 out of 4 games. I won zero. Awesome.
We had always talked about getting out of town, at least overnight, during our stay in Detroit, but we hadn’t decided where to go. Around dinner time, we started discussing it in earnest, and tossed out Toronto (we knew there was more we wanted to do there than our brief trip from Buffalo would allow), Grand Rapids, Traverse City, and “Up North.” We had considered Chicago before we left on the trip and dismissed it because David said the Cubs were out of town. Well, we double checked Sunday evening, and he had been wrong. We saw that we were able to get tickets, which meant I could fulfill #64 on the list (go to three Major League ballparks I’ve never been to) in this one trip, and that sealed the deal. We quickly booked a hotel and packed a bag, and left for Chicago at 8pm, and arrived around 1am Monday morning. That’s the most spontaneous trip I’ve ever been on in my life, and it was so fun!
And I’ll tell you all about it next time!
Young men should travel, if but to amuse themselves.
– Byron
Lots to show and tell, but no energy to do it right now. In lieu of an actual story-telling post, I give you the following pictures:
And I’m sorry I missed posting Three Things last week; we were out and about in Toronto and time got away from me. I promise a double shot this week, though!
Our battered suitcases were piled high on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
– from On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
David and I are leaving in just a few minutes for 11 glorious days of vacation! Today we head back to Detroit – we’ve got a Tigers game and perhaps a trip “up North,” as David calls it, on the agenda. Wednesday we’ll head to the Buffalo area to see my mom’s side of the family. My cousin is getting married next Saturday up there, and I’m in the wedding. David has never met the large, very loud, very Italian contingent of my family (the side that’s lousy with lawyers, coincidentally), so it promises to be very interesting! Thursday we’ll take a side overnight trip to Toronto, where I intend to be very vocal in my dislike of the Yankees at a Yanks-Blue Jays game (for those of you keeping track at home, that will cover two of three baseball stadiums I’ve never been to, which is #64 on my list)!
Posting will probably be light, but I’ll definitely post a Three Things Thursday next week. Have a wonderful vacation from me!
California is beautiful to look at, but you can’t be a part of it like you can in Michigan.
– Gov. Jennifer Granholm
Our weekend in Michigan was low-key, relaxing, and wonderful. The Eagle Court ceremony was really nice, but seeing all the teenage boys made me glad I’m not a teenager anymore. I had forgotten how awkward the teen years can be.
The weather was gorgeous, and we kept driving by all of these adorable little houses, many of which were for sale, and I imagined that I might actually like to live there one day. Then David reminded me that winter in Michigan is a lot like winter in Buffalo, with which I have a passing familiarity, and that idea was promptly set aside. Still, I love to imagine where our life together might take us, and you never know where you’ll end up.
I really enjoyed spending time with David’s family; they are lovely people, truly. And we hung out with his friends and barbequed Saturday night, and while I mostly read once the activities turned to Rock Band, that was fine by me, because he was having a good time with people he doesn’t get to see very often. It made me happy that he was happy.
Oh, also, I got an adorable new bag at Meijer for under $5! It’s perfect!
That’s not a great picture, but it’s purple and gray, and I love it! It holds everything I need with plenty of room to spare and it’s totally comfortable to carry. Yay!
Also, in 101 in 1001 news, I’m pleased to announce I’ve accomplished my first task, #16: Yelp! Fat Matt’s. See my review here! Only 100 more to go! I think the next thing to tackle is the letter to myself (#95) and putting my recipes into a binder (#29).
In Scouting, a boy is encouraged to educate himself instead of being instructed.
– Sir Robert Baden-Powell
It’s fortuitous that NaBloPoMo ends Friday. Tomorrow’s Three Things Thursday, and for Friday’s post I just have to put the finishing touches on something I’ve been working on all month and put it up that morning. Then, David and I are flying to Detroit for the weekend, so blogging probably won’t happen, but Saturday’s the 1st, so I’m home free!
David’s brother is being promoted (is that the right word?) to Eagle Scout and the ceremony is Friday night. David promised TJ that he’d be there, so off we go. I’m looking forward to it, actually. I really like David’s family and I’m excited to see them again. We’re actually going back at the end of August for several days before heading to Buffalo (with a side trip to Toronto) for my cousin’s wedding Labor Day weekend (I’m a bridesmaid yet again, and the dress is awesome – I’ve have very good luck in the bridesmaid dress department). I’m hoping we’ll get up to the Northern Penninsula on that trip; I hear it’s beautiful.
That’s all the vacationing we’re doing this summer. David has tons of vacation time saved up – so much so that he’s got to use something like 10 days before the end of the year or he loses them – but I don’t, so I’ve got to save some for the holidays. So I want to live vicariously through all of you: Where have you gone so far this summer, or where are you still planning to go?
That’s baseball, and it’s my game. Y’know, you take your worries to the game and you leave ‘em there. You yell like crazy for your guys. It’s good for your lungs, it gives you a lift, and nobody calls the cops. Pretty girls, lots of ‘em.
– Humphrey Bogart
So remember this? My little story from about a year ago about watching my Braves collapse yet again while I’m in attendance? Yeah, it nearly happened again Friday night in Atlanta. The tickets and trip were my birthday present from David; I’ve longed to see the Braves play in Atlanta, so he made it happen.
We flew in Friday afternoon and headed to the stadium around 5:30. As you can tell by the picture, the weather was looking ominous; I wasn’t even sure they’d get to play at all. Derek Lowe, the Braves’ new ace, was on the mound for the home opener, and he’d recorded 5 strikeouts through three innings and the Braves were up 3-1. After two pitches in the top of the 4th, the game was delayed due to rain. And then hail. And then the left field grass flooded. And then it poured some more.
But the rain let up and the super-awesome grounds crew went to work, and after more than two hours, play resumed at around 10:40. I don’t remember many of the details, except that in the top of the 9th inning, with the Braves leading 5-4, our closer – why can we not find a decent closer? – gave up the tying run (after the relievers had already allowed three additional runs prior to that). I’m not going to lie: I teared up. No actual tears fell, but it was close.
You have no idea how into this game I was. I love these boys, and I rise and fall with them all season long. And being at Turner Field for the home opener felt a little like coming home – I had my McCann jersey on, and my hat, and for the first time ever, I got to do the Tomahawk Chop – in person – with 40,000 other people. That was amazing. And having never seen them win in person, I was *this* close, and it felt like it was slipping away.
I was on edge the rest of the inning til they got the third out. I couldn’t Chop with the rest of the fans or yell or cheer – I was standing, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet with my hands over my face, barely breathing.
We couldn’t get a run in the bottom of the ninth, so we went into extra innings. We managed to hold them in the 10th, but just barely. David and I had moved down to about 20 rows from the field by now, and being so close to the action was exhilarating. When Schafer hit his single in the 10th, I screamed like a lunatic. When he got bunted over to second by the pinch hitter, I yelled and cheered. When Johnson hit a line drive just over the infielders’ heads, I screamed wildly as Shafer raced around third and headed for home. When he slid into home plate and the umpire signaled he was safe, I lost my mind, jumping up and down, whooping. And then a tear or two really did escape: They’d done it; they’d finally done it! David was looking at me with the biggest smile on his face – knowing how happy I was made him happy.
At 1:26 in the morning on Saturday, my wish came true. I could not have been more excited. As we exited the stadium, the fans started another round of the Tomahawk Chop, and I joined in at the top of my lungs, thrilled to be a part of something so much bigger than I am: Braves fandom.
When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed, but your childhood.
– Sam Ewing
This is the house in Pennsylvania I lived in from the time I was 6 until I was 9:
David and I were at a wedding in New Jersey this weekend, and we detoured to my old neighborhood on the way back. I’ve done this once before – in 2003, I gave Nate tickets to see the Cubs v. the Phillies during the last season at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia (that’s the first professional baseball game we ever saw when we were kids living outside Philly). The weekend we were there, we decided to take the El out to near where we used to live and go see our old house. This weekend’s experience, just like that one, has left me pensive.
This is what I think of as my childhood home, though we only lived there for three years. It’s one half of a duplex, I guess they call it, and before I went back in 2003, I would have described it — and been convinced I was right — as having all white siding on the front, but I’d have been wrong. Also, when we lived there, the front of the property was bordered by a two-foot high retaining wall on top of which grew very tall hedges. You could hardly see the house from the street. The fence around the back yard was chain link, not wood like it is now. The people who live there now have added a play area in the back yard that’s got mulch in it, but otherwise, everything’s the same.
Except it isn’t.
The street itself is so small. Cars parallel park on either side, and there’s only room for one-way driving down the middle. I would swear it was bigger when I was a kid – the houses across the street were surely farther away than they were yesterday. Weren’t they? And the alley behind it – we don’t have alleys in Virginia – I can remember my friends and I racing down it on our bikes, from the top of the street to the bottom, and being gleefully frightened at the speed with which we were descending such a steep hill. As a grown up, though, I can tell you that the incline in the alley is 15 degrees, tops.
I looked at the windows, remembering what lay behind each one when we lived there, narrating for David – those two in the front upstairs, that was my parents’ room. Downstairs, the front door opened into the living room where I celebrated my 8th birthday with a Cabbage Patch Kid-themed party, having gotten my first (and only) Cabbage Patch doll that Christmas. In the back, the window on the left, that was my tiny room, barely big enough for my twin bed and dresser. On the right, Nathaniel’s, except when we had to share while my dad used my room for research when he was writing his dissertation. That window in the back, to the right of the screen door, was the dining room, and my bicycle (a hand-me-down boy’s bike from my uncle) got stolen from underneath it. I still remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when I looked down out of the window in Nathaniel’s room and realized it was gone.
We used to drink from the hose hooked up to the side of the house – nothing tastes like water right from the hose, does it? The latch on the back gate gave too easily, and our sheepdog, Shad, used to regularly get out of the yard and roam the neighborhood. I can hear us calling after her even now. Nathaniel and I once tried to sell lemonade and iced tea from our front porch, no easy feat considering the tall hedges out front and the fact that it was probably a weekday in the summer. To make up for our poor location, we yelled “Lemonade! Iced Tea!” at all the cars passing by. My parents’ room was above the front porch, and my dad was sleeping in that day. He yelled at us to be quiet. I don’t think we made much money.
I can still remember the slightly musty smell that hit you when you opened the door from the kitchen to go down to the basement. Oh, the basement – we don’t really have basements in Virgina, either. Nathaniel and I spent hours down there, especially on rainy days. We used to roller skate along the smooth concrete floor, crashing into the walls at either end (it wasn’t very big). We played games and made up stories – we had these hand puppets, one was a raccoon and one was a sheep, and we decided they were detectives. There was even a theme song.
David and I walked up the alley; I pointed out the space between the houses on the other side where I used to cut through to go to my friend’s house. At the top of the alley we made a u-turn and came down my old street from the end. From up there, I pointed out my old baby-sitter’s house and the church where I used to have Brownie meetings. On the way down, I recalled the particular front porch on which I spent many hours with another friend playing “Hotel” – which, as far as I can remember, consisted of us pretending someone was calling on the old phone we had and making pretend reservations at our hotel for various invented people.
When Nathaniel and I visited, I didn’t recognize where we got off the El, and we walked for a good 20 minutes from there before I recognized anything. I was struck then how much of a difference the two years in age must make, that he knew the way home from the El even after 17 years, and I had no clue. My whole world then basically consisted of the three blocks that included my elementary school one block over, my street, and the street on the other side of the alley where several of my friends lived. Big enough for a nine-year old for sure, but tiny in retrospect.
In my heart, though, it’s still big enough for all the memories we made there.
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