Taking the long way home...

I was driving home from lunch today and as I got onto the Parkway and started to get off at Governor's Drive to head over the mountain, traffic was backed up almost to the ramp. There's been a bunch of construction on Governors at the hopital for quite some time now, and some days it's just crazy. Apparently today was one of those days. So I decided to go further south and go home over the other mountain... and as I drove down that way, something in me got kinda nostalgic and I decided to do a little drive down memory lane.

I grew up on the south end of Huntsville, but unless I'm going to get my hair cut or to the doctor, I don't go down that way too often. So I often 'forget' that I actually grew up here. ha Anyways, I got off at Airport Road and when I got to Whitesburg, I took a right and almost immediately, I felt transported back in time. Something about Whitesburg Drive does that to me. :-) Pretty quickly, I drove past one of my best friend's house from middle and high school. Just down the road, I took a left on Tannehill and drove up the hill to the top and took a right. That's when I passed by my old high school boyfriend's house... As I drove a little more around that neighborhood, I passed my old piano teacher's house, and then the girl's house that was flag corp captain when I was rifle corp captain in band. I drove down the road that I had traveled many times to another best friend's house... I even turned around on the hill that my dad first had me stop on when I was learning to drive a stick shift. He very purposefully didn't tell me that the car would roll backward while I was trying to get it in gear and he fell out laughing when I screamed and stalled the car that first time. ;-) I noticed as I drove down Hickory Hill Lane that they've put in speed 'humps.' Those weren't necessary back when I was growing up there -- but times change. Then when I rounded the corner onto Atwood Drive, I passed the creek we used to play in that we weren't supposed to (shhhh.... don't tell my parents!) and drove along the 'Aldridge Creek Greenway' that's in place of several homes that were across the street from mine growing up. You know, we could have had a lot of fun on that bike path if it had been there when I was little... but then, I wouldn't have had the friends who lived in the houses (or my babysitter!) or gotten to play ball in the Moss's back yard. (We lost a lot of balls to the creek playing there!) I drove past the house I grew up in and marveled again at how big the trees are that I remember planting with my dad. And I've told this story to lots of people, but there are shutters that my dad put up inside what was my brother's bedroom (instead of curtains) many, many years ago.... and they're STILL there. I'm not sure how many times that house has changed hands, but that amazes me. I suppose one day I'll drive by and they'll be gone, and I think I'll lose one more little bit of my childhood when that happens.... but for now I hang on. :-) So I turned onto Loukell (who thinks up these names?) and past my neighbor's house where I used to go swimming, and the other neighbor where I used to jump on their trampoline... oh, I forgot the best neighbors of all - the family we 'grew up' with where you could just come and go like you lived there. I passed their house, too. Then past the kids I used to babysit for. I thought is was SO cool back then that their entire back yard was a full-sized tennis court! Nobody in the neighborhood had anything like that! Then as I left my old neighborhood, I passed my other piano teacher's house and finally past another best friend.... as I passed her driveway, I had the most vivid memory of dragging her ping-pong table out there and playing ping-pong for hours. The 'last' stop on my journey was passing by my old high school, Grissom. I drove past the back parking lot where I spent many hot summer mornings and cool fall afternoons practicing with the marching band. I would say some of my best teenage memories came out of those times and my association with the band.

And at that point, it was time to go home because I was running out of gas. :-) So I started over the mountain and as I left south Huntsville behind and headed into Hampton Cove, I suddenly felt as if time fast-forwarded 30 years to the present with a jolt. Can it really be that long ago? It seems almost as if time stands still whenever I make that drive... but it doesn't. Things change, and I have changed. Other people live and go about their lives where I used to live... the friends I grew up with are scattered and we've lost touch... it makes me a little sad thinking about it. But I don't want to dwell there. Driving down the mountain into my life now, I'm making new memories with my own kids.... and thinking that we moved here when Anna was 6 years old - the same age I was when our family first moved to Huntsville. (weird) So maybe one day she'll find herself taking the kind of drive I just took this afternoon and taking a little trip down memory lane like her old mom. :-)