I’M NOT PLANNING ON GOING BACK to my hometown unless I am summoned by someone’s death. That would be the only event that would pull me back. It would likely cause my complaining the whole way down to greater Detroit.
It is where I grew up. I went back after my early business experiences out in the vast Midwest. It is where I married a few times and raised my kids over a couple of decades. I think they are my kids. I certainly have mostly fond memories of all that.
Yet, today, I have little interest in going back. Even though I write about this phase of my life with such fondness, I am fixed in the belief that the past is the past and it needs to remain just that. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd for a writer of memoirs? Unless you realize I am also a humorist and a Gemini.
I want a nice balance with what I once experienced and where I would like to venture. I like heading to the unknown from a firm foundation. That seems to be a far more productive path for me than sitting around the local pub and talking about the past and complaining about one’s health.
Going Home
The place I once called home
Today exists only in my memory.
My town has changed in all manners
Buildings and stores and so much more.
I recall from my childhood so many things
There were violets and lilacs along my path.
And fields resplendent in flowers and tall grass
I avoided cracks to save my mother’s back.
All this came to me this day in late May
Clear scenes from so many years ago.
And smiles on my parent’s faces fixed in time
I accept they are gone only to help this rhyme.
Robert Bruce Adams