Over the river and through the woods

... To Grandmother's house we go.

The river was Cedar Fork, there were no woods, just train tracks, and the we was me and my legs. But we did see Grandmother's house today. I headed south for the first time. It wasn't really planned, but when I saw the past due  water/sewer/refuse bill on the kitchen table, I figured I could drop it off at City Hall during my run, even though I'll be biking downtown later for work. You know what they say about variety and spice and all that.

Just a few blocks north of my grandparents' former home on South Seminary Street lie the BNSF yards. Coming out of the yards are tracks seemingly in all directions, so the streets nearby are cut repeatedly with rails. It's confusing in a couple of places because of split lines. The untrained eye doesn't know if a train is headed toward the crossing to the left and curving off on the more direct northern line. Of course it was just my luck that the train was taking the left track.

I ran in place for a couple of minutes but I always feel like an idiot doing that, especially when there are people in cars watching, so I headed around the block. But it was a long, slow freight, so I continued east on Knox Street to Day, then south to Third Street (farther west on that little street sits the birthplace of poet Carl Sandburg). Then I zigged down Chambers and zagged along Fifth to Seminary. Across the street, just a couple houses south of the intersection stood the house I once knew so well.

My sister and I would stay there when our parents went off on motorcycle trips in the summer. I would sneak into my grandparents' bedroom and stare longingly at the beautiful guns in the cabinet he made. I mowed the lawn and the neighbor's yard with my grandpa (he always let me drive the riding mower while he trimmed with an old Lawnboy). We did Thanksgiving there and Christmas and watched "Hee-Haw" every week. My wife and I lived there for four months when we moved back to town, before we found a house of our own (with the help of my parents).

Stairway to Heaven? "You shall not pass!" 

When I first started at The Register-Mail, my dad and I would meet at Grandma and Grandpa's every Thursday for lunch: pancakes, meat loaf, hash and eggs, spam and mac 'n cheese, vegetable beef soup ... sometimes graham crackers with frosting for dessert, but always cookies. Grandma wisely and lovingly kept the spinning corner cupboard well-stocked with a variety of cookies: sugar cookies, fig Newtons, chocolate chip, Oreos, all stored in coffee cans with tight-fitting plastic lids to seal in the freshness and ward off staleness, though that was rarely a serious threat given my appetite for cookies.

Grandma and Grandpa moved to the nursing home years ago. Grandpa died five or six years ago, Grandma's still there. The neighborhood is changed. Also gone, several blocks north at the Seminary Street "subway," is Helen and Mead's Millionaire Hill retirement hotel. Only the memories and some steps remain. That's the way it is. People and places pass, life moves on. All we have are the memories. 

Today's Stats

Temp: 27 degrees F

Distance: 5.5 miles

Treasure: 31 cans; 2 gloves (a pink knit "magic glove" and a firefighter's glove! How cool is that?).

iPod Playlist (shuffle)

Walk Walk - The Call

Mr. Bad Example - Warren Zevon

Lebanese Blonde - Thievery Corporation

We Can Work it Out - The Beatles

Shame - Matchbox Twenty

Carmelita - Warren Zevon

Don't Let Me Down - The Beatles

These Hard Times - Matchbox Twenty

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

Eight Days a Week - The Beatles

What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy) - Information Society

The Show Must Go On - Pink Floyd

Your Time is Gonna Come - Led Zeppelin

Broken - Lifehouse

Argue - Matchbox Twenty

Lenny/Man on the Side (live) - John Mayer

Stop - Matchbox Twenty