Today I took a tour of the old home town. I didn't really mean to do so, only I think I zigged when I should have zagged and I ended up in a section of Pittsburgh I haven't been to for more than twenty years. It was fun! It was funny to recognize parks, and streets and remember looking for an apartment over a bar that smelled just like rotten apples I drove past a park that Gus and Yaya were legends and sold snow cones. I stumbled upon the Steelers Stadium and Pirates Stadium and I feel in love with the skyline again. It was a fun trip, though none of it is exactly as it was twenty years ago.
This is entirely appropriate. I am not exactly as I was twenty years ago. It would have been sort of strange to have found the place in a frozen state of time, just waiting for me to stumble back. I liked finding a few memories though. I liked discovering though that they still have a place for me. Somewhere amidst all the new construction and road design, the shopping centers that have moved in and the businesses that replaced the old ones, I caught sight of a memory or two.
There, where Walgreen's now stands proudly on the corner which now boasts a stoplight, used to stand a Dairy Queen. It was a landmark not only for the wonderful taste treats and the hanging out in the parking lot, but also because they employed me for a summer. Only they paid me less than minimum wage because I was a trainee. I stayed a trainee all summer. Go figure. I think I still won that particular war though because they may not have paid me well, but I ate my weight in brownies and ice cream and various and sundry food items. Like the deep fried mushrooms. Yum. This is the place where a very large muscular man once dumped a blizzard on the counter because according to the advertising you should be able to turn over the cup and it should stay put. The guy who was working with me made the blizzard and turned white when it went all over the counter. He stood looking at me with horror said repeatedly, what do I do now, what do I do now? I said, make him another one... I don't think we said duh in those days. But we no doubt thought it.
I drove past the Salvation Army Harbor Light's Center, or at least where it used to be. I didn't see it. I remember working there though! I was the
receptionist/bookkeeper for a year. It was an interesting job, to say the least. Perhaps the best story was the guy who was staying at the center named Jesse. He wrote me love notes every morning and offered to make me the mother of nations. I think it was when he left me a kiss puff that his lips had brushed against 100 times that he was sent for psychiatric evaluation. Or maybe the man who came in and told me that he had delivered babies during the Vietnam War. I thought he was fairly sane until he told me that when women who are older have babies, they are born with teeth and he had a scar from being bitten. That's when I called the Vets Admin and told them I had one of theirs.
Or perhaps the park, just down the street from where the Center had been. It looked remarkably the same with the same exercise equipment and playground. I remembered visiting it at lunch time and seeing a homeless man, in a huge tee shirt and large baggy sweatpants taking food from the garbage can. I remember watching and thinking this must be as down and out as you could get, not only eating others trash but picking for it in broad daylight. I was a baby in those days, very naive and innocent about much in life, strangely wise and experienced in others. I think back to what I knew then and what I didn't know, and I am astonished that much of me is very like the ever so young lady trying to start adult life. I still am somewhat naive and innocent about somethings, very wise and experienced about others. Time has changed the areas but not the outlook.
I am remembering memories I have intentionally remembered before. Some are like old wounds that from time to time I poke to see if they still hurt. Some do, some have healed up and just a scar remains to remind me of the injury. I am grateful for the healing, wondering if a time comes when all is healed and no emotional response is stirred. I hope so.
I am sitting in the home where I grew up. I cannot imagine how it is that we put six people in this tiny house with one bathroom. I stand in my bedroom and think not only did I fit into this room with all my worldly possessions, my sister did too.
One bathroom, think about that?! And we weren't alone, I had only one friend with two bathrooms and that wasn't until we were in high school and her parents remodeled.
I remember sitting on the bedroom, hiding with my back to the dresser, feet on the heat vent and book in hand. I guess that was what we considered personal space. I also remembered that when you took a bath you had to pull the curtain a lot so that other family members could use the facilities. This no doubt lead to my phobia of going to the bathroom in groups. And I remember my siblings and I going to bed and chatting with one another. This didn't last long, my older siblings being MUCH older (my emphasis not theirs) were away from home before too long, but for a few years we used to fall asleep being goofy and making fun of our next door neighbor, Gil Capone, whom we did not like.
I have recently become a fan of a contemporary worship song that contains the line, 'who I am is who I've been'. I discover this is true, I am who I have been. But not only who I have been. I had a professor tell me that our roots are God's gift to us, not always perhaps what we would have wished but foundational to what God will do. Our choice is to live in a way that reflects God's glory through them, or to shut the door. I think it's a good time to shine the light and watch the glory.
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