Part 1:
The other night I had a dream. It was dark, the middle of the night, but we were all out on the flat part of the street where we all grew up together. All of us kids again, 10, 11, 12- all together. We were riding our bikes up and down the street, onto and off of people's driveways, play jousting, playing tag, or lining up and riding single file, playing "follow the leader." Just being kids on bikes again, like we did so long ago:. Pat*, Jesse, Dennis, Curt, my brother and me, even Jon Dzeng who used to live next door to Dennis and Pat, and who I haven't seen or thought about in 40 years since he moved away. Except it was just us, and we were like ghosts- in the dead middle of the night, all the adults were asleep, and we could, just for a short time, be the whole gang together as kids once again. Everyone has long since grown up, moved on, had kids of their own, and we will likely never see each other again, at least in this life- and Dennis has already left even that behind. And the other kids, even their parents no longer live in that neighborhood. But I'd like to think that somehow, every one of those guys somehow had the same dream that night, and so we really WERE together; and this dream was a shared reality for all of us together, as unlikely though that would be. That would have been nice.
(*obviously I'm not gonna use their real names on an adult-website blog, silly.)
Part 2:
The other day, I took a drive, back to the town where I had gone to college and spent much of my formative early adult years. I saw a friend, we went out for lunch, went on a walk, stopped off at the pet store. But afterwards, on the way home, I swung by our old house. It was an old Victorian, built clear back in 1890, which five of us- three guys, one girlfriend- all rented and lived in. Back in the day, this place was full of fun activity. Big groups of us played volleyball on the front lawn, sometimes up to five or six on a side. In the house, a refrigerator had been converted with a CO2 tap into a keg dispenser so the beer was always flowing- usually kegs of Budweiser, Pabst- that sort of beer, maybe once in a while we'd splurge and get Weinhards, But we were young and in college so it was fine. People would stop by and hang out. Good friends; we were never lacking for fun people to hang with. Parties would happen, sometimes with hundreds of people, till the floor of the house was literally shaking with happy, joyous kids in their college years. Once in a while, like the time we had our friend's band Morbsweeper* play outside in the yard, the neighbors would complain, but it was a mostly industrial area so we really didn't have that many neighbors. And in any case, we'd always let them know they were invited over, too. We did not want to be some exclusive frat house type place. (And by the next party, the band was indoors in the living room.) Overall, there was laughter, and good times.
But now, the house stands forlorn. The entire lot, including the grassy front yard which once rang with the shouts of volleyball players, had been paved over. The place had been turned into a maintenance yard for city transit vehicles, with busses and trucks parked all around. A chain-link fence tipped with barbed wire surrounds the property. The house itself is all boarded up now, in a state of neglect and disrepair. The paint has peeled off the sides of the house, and even the bright red and blue trim is faded and sad. This house, full of happy memories, is now in the throes of its final days as a standing structure. I suspect that within a couple years, perhaps as soon as the next time I return to the old town, it will be gone, just a memory.
I guess all good things end, don't they. Cherish the good times when you have them, people. It's okay to look back at the past, but I guess, also strive to make new good things happen today.
(*not the real name of the band, either.)