Moving Back In Time

Sentimental Journey

“Gonna take a sentimental journey.

Gonna set my heart at ease.

Gonna take a sentimental journey,

to renew old memories...”

                    Bud Green, Les Brown, and Ben Homer (1944)

Yesterday, I went to visit the neighborhood in Chattanooga where I lived as a child. We left there when I was nine, but I still remembered so much about it, and it hasn't changed! In sixty long years, it hasn't changed at all. I saw the little house where we lived and remembered all the neighbors names that had lived beside us and across the street. The woods where I played were still green and growing. The school where I started first grade, Normal Park Elementary, is still standing, unchanged, and un-remodled! It was built by Roosevelt's Public Service Corps in 1939, and is now an international magnet school. There were bulletin boards on the walls with childrens' poems written in German and Spanish. The walls are still yellow ceramic tile and the classrooms still have twelve foot high windows; there is no air conditioning. I couldn't have been more surprised if I'd been time-warped back to the dinosaur age.

There is more research to do there, but just walking down the street caused memories to explode in my head. Everything appears smaller, of course, since I am now bigger. The houses are nearer to the street than I remember and closer together. Still, there was Susie, my best friend's house, and those bad-butt Thurman boys', and the Durhams' house where the basement always flooded in winter, and Granny Jones house where she once watched me steal an Indian Paintbrush from her garden to take to my teacher. I can't wait to write the stories that surged up. I remembered the Jolly Cart that came around—hand-pushed by Mr. Mayberry—in summer, and the Shannon twins, who lived across the street, and whose mother limited their exposure to me because I was not Catholic. She (correctly) figured I'd be a bad influence on her little darlings. I remembered the young man next door, who still lived with his parents, and who must have been autistic. He spent his days pacing the sidewalk and counting, measuring the number of steps from corner to corner of his yard—everyday. We knew nothing about autism then; we just knew he was 'not right', so to speak. I wonder what happened to all those folks; where are they now—heaven, or here? I wonder whether they ever return to the old neighborhood and remember me and my sisters.

It's always good to take sentimental journeys, whether you're young or old. It keeps the stories alive inside you; no one should forget their stories. They are the building blocks of who we are, of who we turn out to be. I wonder whether Sherry Hobbs, the pretty teen-aged girl next door, who would now be in her seventies, is still drawing her wonderful art. It was she who got me started, as an adoring six year old, trying to copy the things she drew. I can still see one of her drawings in my mind's eye.

Take some time today to remember a stretch of your own childhood. I'll bet the stories start popping for you, too. Consider writing down those stories as a gift to your grandchildren, who will some day--when you are long gone--appreciate them.

In the spirit,

Jane