Driving South by Southeast, I turned right onto memory lane.

Collier Street.

As a child I had this place memorized.  Now, it’s all but a shadowy misted memory.  It’s late, and most decent people are sleeping.

The houses are still accounted for, but seem smaller and dirtier.  I really don’t know how to process what I’m feeling.  It seemed appropriate to have a moment of silence for those passed.  Many kinfolk had spent there entire lives on this street.  Such a shitty neighborhood.

If any part of this city reminded me of Detroit, it was here.  This tiny neighborhood sandwiched in one of the filthiest industrial parts of town.  Warehouses, landfills, and factories.  Everything seems gray and dirty.

My great grandmother, grandmother, mother, aunts, uncles, cousins etc…all lived over here.

So many memories, and so long ago.

I crept past the old house.  This tiny little shack of a home.  Two bedrooms, and barely 500 sq. ft.  It looks nothing like I remember.  The huge lilac bush is gone.  The scents of it’s blooms would flood the rooms when the breeze blew.

The three properties across the street had housed various relatives.  Those meant nothing now.

Most of our family would squeeze in for the holidays, packed to the gills.  The adults playing euchre and telling each other dirty jokes.  Kids wrestling on the floor, where we could find room.  The smells of cigarettes, cheap beer, left over dinner, and far too many bodies for such a small place.  Stubbly bearded men, who seemed to delight in “sandpapering” the soft faces of children; and the olfactory obliteration of mixed cheap perfumes. With all that said, what we lacked in monetary indulgences, was more than made up for in love –and then some.

Lots and lots of memories.

Plenty of good.
Plenty of bad.

But dammit, I hated the rocky taste, of the mineral filled well water.