Sometimes going home ain't what it's made to be in your head. Somethings are better left to distant memories and driving thru looking at old haunts and high schools from yesteryear. Public parks with first kisses in back seats of cool cars and loud parties on distant side streets. The occupants have changed in houses I once knew so well. Streets have changed and deteriorated and seems that all new people live there. I am the outsider peeking into their world. Their schools, their parties, their parks. Stranger in a foreign land. I didn't feel welcome, times have changed!

Tonight found Sarah and I at my old grade school and church parish, St Charles in Parma, Ohio. We ran into a few old friends and walked and talked a bit. Pulling into the parking lot and walking over to the church yard where the festivities could be heard blocks away and the smells so familiar to bring me back to 1980 as a ten year old with a pocket full of quarters dreaming of riches playing Over/Under for a Quarter a play, letting it ride to a buck and freaking out when I lost it all. Vividly remember seeing "old guys" (Dudes my age today) playing $5 bucks a play. FIVE BUCKS? Holy crap- rinse my mouth out with Holy Water but $hit, that was cash. Hard cash at ten years old.

French Fries, Pizza, Funnel Cakes and Beer, the beer tent seems to get bigger each time I find myself wandering the old neighborhood. Beer sells, and brings in people. Games, and instant bingo tickets. Nun's and Priest's milling among the crowds. A homecoming to locals now. I remember this sun in your eyes, hot summer nights at this carnival. It defined my summers as I grew up, long ago.

It just didn't feel like "my town" anymore. Maybe I am older, somehow changed but I just couldn't get into the whole thing tonight so Sarah and I bailed out after an hour. On the walk back to our car I was telling her about the Library I used to play in and the corner store I'd spend every last cent on candy after school or how I'd hang out for hours playing Galaga at the local Lawson's Dairy & Deli smoking in the back of the store. Yeah, nostalgia hit as I was walking around amongst strangers. She agreed to take the "long way" home and we cruised in 80's fashion; windows down, sun roof open and radio on as we passed my old home. My high school, and Tracy and I's first home. So many places and a flood of memories invaded my windshield rolling through town tonight. Good times best left in my head.

After "cruising" for a bit we went windows up, made for the interstate and headed out of a foreign land back into our life, friends and places that one day Sarah will come to leave and revisit like I did tonight. I just hope her kids get the same tour down memory lane I gave her!