North Star Writers Group

“. . . and again he was in the street, and found the place where the corners met, and for the last time turned to see where Time had gone.” from The Lost Boy by Thomas Wolfe

The old man eyed me as he took another swig of whatever it was he had in the brown paper bag. “You say you played baseball here?” he asked.

“This is it, all right,” I replied, pointing to the weed-infested field where bits of broken glass sparkled in the afternoon sun.

The old man shook his head. “Ain’t been no ballgames around here since this neighborhood started going to hell.” He studied me with sad eyes. “Listen, maybe you’re wrong about where that there ballfield was. Maybe it was a couple of blocks over. Or something.”

But I knew I wasn’t wrong. The disheveled field in which I was standing was definitely the same one I’d played sandlot ball on when I was 10 years old. Funny thing about childhood ball fields. A lot of men remember them almost as well as they remember first bicycles, first loves.

That was the old ball field, all right, but I was late for my date with yesterday. You see, if you’re going to return to the hometown you left in search of greener pastures, don’t wait too long to do it. If you go back after too many years, as I did, most or all of the people and places that meant something to you will be gone.

That’s what happened recently when I visited my old neighborhood in Flint, Michigan, where I was born and raised. My first stop was Oak Street Elementary School where I learned reading, writing, arithmetic and how to tie a small mirror on my right shoe so I could look up girl’s dresses - even though I didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was looking for.

Although the big, three-story brick building hadn’t changed, I discovered it wasn’t a school any more, so I just stood outside, gazing up at the fire escape where I used to clean blackboard erasers. On the asphalt playground, I met two children. “I used to play Pom-Pom Pullaway and Red Rover Come Over on this playground,” I told them.

They gave me funny looks, then ran off, giggling. More defeats followed.

Nino’s, where I ate my first pizza in 1955, is now a computer store, and Dingman’s Market, where junior high school students used to while away lunch hours over chocolate doughnuts washed down with RC Cola, is a parking lot.

Then, suddenly, or so it seemed anyway, it was early evening and I was standing on a ball field that wasn’t a ball field any more talking to an old man who was drinking his dinner out of a brown paper bag.

“You look depressed,” he said.

“Nothing’s the same,” I said. “I mean, I grew up around here, but now I don’t even recognize any of the houses. “

“You remember Beacon’s Appliance Store?” he said.

Mere mention of the name made my heart race. “Yes, I remember Beacon’s,” I told him. “When TV first came out, I stood in front of that store many an afternoon watching the set in the display window. Later, Dad bought our first TV there. God, yes, Beacon’s!” It wasn’t much, just an appliance store, but at least it was something from the past, something for me to latch onto.

That’s when the old man shook his head and said, “Don’t bother. That place burned down last year.”

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