Homesick Homie

I could not imagine being so far away from home that you miss every little thing about it. For instance the leaves turning in the fall. When you go from living on the East Coast your whole life and you move to the dessert, you miss things like that. I take things like that for granted. The same old roads and business' like going to the Golden Bull for a case of beer. Or being careful not to scrape your bumper on the cracked up driveway as you leave the 7-11.


There is an old house on a cul de sac on Philben Drive. With a red brick facade and porch. Just past the veranda, bushes with a flower bed. the old park bench on the porch where we've smoked plenty of cigarettes and enjoyed many a heart to heart.  As you enter there is a rack with various frog statuettes, gives the entrance a bit of whimsy. If it were my mom's place that rack would be full of her angel collection. Like my mom's house would have, there a statue of the Virgin Mary in the front. 

Some of my favorite memories of that house came by during the holidays or and impromptu get together. I've spent many a Thanksgiving here. Nothing beats sitting on the deck with a cold Corona, while your old man cooks off some short ribs. Then your old lady brings out a big bowl of white rice, and urges us to "eat, eat!!" The best stories have been told on that porch. That's where I told the story about the banana pudding butter incident. No better place to be for a good laugh. This porch also witnessed our reunion a few years back.

These are just my few meaningless memories. I couldn't imagine the thousands of things you saw, heard, smelled, tasted and felt at 2704. The countless ours of silence, joy and ecstasy you may taken for granted. The many Christmas', Easter Sundays, and birthdays. I can see how being away can make your heartache. To quote Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz,"there's no place like home" Just like you miss this place and the people you love, we miss you, and so does the house. Even after we're all dead and gone, a piece of your soul will forever live here. Keep your head up and remember that we're always waiting for you to come home.

"Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too"