Home?

Shawn | July 5, 2009 in Journal | Comments (1)

“How long ya home for?”

“Just the weekend.”

Folks around home just nod their head in a silent understanding. They know why I keep my visits to a minimum, there’s not much here anymore. East Millinocket looks pretty ragged nowadays. The streets I ran and skateboarded on, pavement all cracking, grass poking through. The general store I played video games & pinball at every night after school, long closed. The lot where workers once parked to enter the mill coming into town, now full of cars, motorcycles and snowmobiles for sale. Many of the friends I graduated with no longer come back, their families relocated in search of work once the mill laid off and showed no hope of improving.

Things move slower here than I remember. Not much changes, or should I say, not much progresses. The mill is closed again due to lack of orders and money is drying up. People are leaving and those that stay are feeling the weight of the economy. Nothing new lasts. Nothing seems to get repaired. My hometown is in its death throes.

I sadly feel aloof now from the town I grew up in. I’ve changed. East Millinocket was never going to be enough for me but I always had a soft spot for the pace and peace of small-town life. No matter where I’ve been it’s been an anchor. But now watching its population dwindle, its streets and homes weather, seeing the tote roads I hunted since I was a teenager cleared and cut in desperate attempts to step up production for diminishing demand, my memories start to fade with the years and many of the faces that made this town home have all moved on.

It will always be where I grew up, where my family is, where I learned my most important life lessons, but it hurts my heart a little to know now that it will never be home again.

Comments (1)

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Comment by Gennyfer — July 6, 2009 @ 8:30 pm
I used to listen to my grandfather and my mother going on about the changes in the scenery when we’d go back to Harrisburg (where they were from). It got so we kids in the back seat would just roll our eyes when they started reminiscing about how it used to be. Now I see the changes when I go back to visit places we lived (there were many) some like your hometown fading with wear, too small too fit yet I ache to be that Cinderella, others so overblown and overgrown you can’t see the memories through the big boxes. It took me a long time to figure out, after I was full grown, where to find a place called home.