Memory Lane

It seems this has been a weekend spent on memory lane; this morning, I received an e-mail from my Mom with this clip from the CBC archives. My Grandfather was a reporter for the CBC in the 60's and 70's. He died in 1986 and I'd never had the occasion to see any of his on-camera work. I still think of him frequently and wish he'd had a chance to me the Boy and the Girl.

This past week had me dreaming about the house I spent the most time growing up in. Every once in a while I will dream of that particular one and the one we lived in prior. The one we lived in prior always manifests itself as having far more hallways than it did in reality and doors lining the walls of the hallway in a fashion reminiscent of a ScoobyDoo show. And while the former house is generally a setting of safety when a wild bear, wolf or aliens are trying to hunt me down. This time though, I walked up the stairs wondering why the hell I was there. My parents were busy hustling around and there was clutter everywhere. "Why are we here?" I kept asking them. No answers were provided, but my Mom handed me a large houseplant and told me to re-pot it; however there was a distinct lack of pots or soil. I wandered around and discovered that there was actually an amusement park surrounding the house.

This was no ordinary amusement park. It was the kind of amusement park that should have been destroyed decades ago; rusty rails, carnies that had seen their best days in the 70's and hadn't changed their clothes since.

I figured I'd make the best of it and brought the kids out to take a look. A scattering of food stations all closing up for the day and an a rollercoaster on the roof. "Who the hell planned this out?" I yelled around. No answers from anyone.

I let it be and then by a scattering of circumstances, wound up taking my Grandmother for a drive yesterday evening. She'd been invited to an event she didn't want to drive to and I offered. Arriving early, I suggested I take her for a drive and as coincidence would have it, we were quite close to the house from my dream. We made our way along the winding road and turned up towards it. Strange to stare up at it from the bottom of a tree-filled driveway. On the way back home, I took the scenic route that took me past 2 more of the 4 houses I remember living in as a kid, listening to my Grandma recount stories from "back then".

I drove and mostly just listened. My uncle, her brother died quite recently and I suspect that because she was unable to go to the memorial, she still had a need to look back. She spoke about visiting my Granfather's grave. I wondered what she must be thinking about her brother's death. She will never really express anything about it, that's just the way she is.

So I took her with me along memory lane. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to take a look back to see how far you've come.