Blast From the Past

I had the amazing privilege (THANK YOU FALL BREAK) to go back to New Hampshire for a few days. I don't think I've been there since 1996 and it was a total trip to drive past places that I had remembered so vividly in my mind. I left Boise way too early to conceive and after a lovely few hours in Denver with my favorite little-est sister (who helped me catch a student plagiarizing his second paper), I landed in Beautiful Boston. There was a little snafu with the original bus that I was going to take into Lebanon but it turned out to be even better because I caught a different, cheaper coach, got to watch Date Night and got into Lebanon (not Hanover) an hour and a half earlier. Danielle picked me up, we hugged and jumped around with glee and then headed home. Her house, other than an addition to the front, was seemingly unchanged since the days of my youth- the days of watching Touched By An Angel and eating strawberries and sugar, playing telephone at birthday games, sleeping in the basement and playing dress-ups. It was pretty late so we headed to bed.

The next morning was all about the memories. "Dairy Twirl!" I shouted with glee as we passed the ice cream place that had the cruddiest parking lot ever. So dirty. But the best place to go after t-ball games. And yes, I played t-ball. I was the only girl (except for that one year Kelly Parla was on the team- but she was useless).

We stopped by the library so I could print out the rest of my papers to grade (ugh, more on that in another blog post so as to not tarnish the happy mood of this blog post) and then headed to the Powerhouse Mall and Lui Luis. When I was little, they would give you raw dough to play with while waiting. I met Mary-Catherine, Trev's wife, and Ali, their sweet little baby girl, as well as Sarah, Ricky's mom. Lunch was delicious! As were Ricky's inappropriate sound effects (BOOM!) Well, those weren't delicious, just funny.

We also wished Bruce a happy birthday.

After lunch was the moment I had been waiting for. We drove up the road to King's Grant neighborhood to Wellington Circle to see the old house.
So many changes! The wood is different (or at least looks different), they painted the garage and doors and the deck and added a trampoline (OK, that last one is pretty cool...) So weird to see the house again- and so good! If it hadn't been so rainy, we would have gone romping through the Beaver Pond (even though someone lives right there now!). We passed all the old houses too: the Avery's, Rosensweigs, Lounsburys, Sorensens, Blankenbaur (I think?). Even though I didn't remember names, the houses I definitely recognized. We even drove around Nottingham Circle to see the Tselepedakias' old house and pool.



That nostalgia out of the way, we headed back to the Lebanon Green and wandered about. The old library was there, Lebanon College, site of the toy store Danielle's mom used to own, the complex where we had a few outdoor concerts, the CCBA and the big wide open spaces with the Pan statue. The colors were just gorgeous and the rain had stopped- we even had a little bit of sun!




Then it was onto Hanover, passed Greensboro Lane where Mrs. Shewmaker and Nancy Bent used to live and over to Dartmouth. (We may or may not have done a little stalking on our way over.... but we will never tell....) We drove around the green looking at the old buildings we used to play around. Danielle's dad used to be the trainer for the Dartmouth Sports teams and so we spent many-a-weekend watching the basketball, football and baseball teams play.


We headed over to Occam's Pond where, in the wintertime, we would go sledding, cross-country skiing and and ice-skating. I once lost a tooth on that hill. A lady wanted to take me to the E.R. since I was bleeding. My parents were cross-country skiing at the time.


Then it was across the Connecticut River on the Ball Bridge, as Danielle and I are now calling it (don't ask) to the Montshire! I loved the name- a combination of Vermont and New Hampshire. Wayyyy before Bennifer and Branjelina was popular, we had the Montshire. The speed limit at 18 mph getting into the museum. No more, no less. We didn't go in but drove about the parking lot talking about what we loved inside the musuem.


And finally, to the place where our love story began :) We went over to Mount Lebanon, our elementary school, where we happily spent second and third grade together. It looked exactly the same, from the bubble window in the library to the sad little playground to the creepy cemetery next door. The garden outside of Ms. Mills' room was still there (the garden that our class started, 17 years ago.... holy crap that's a long time!). We finally accosted a teacher leaving for the day and asked her to take our picture. She was very kind and obliged. As we left, we also drove past Seminary Hill Elementary where I only got to spend about two months before moving to stupid California.





That night, after several amusing conversations with Ashley where she revealed she hated the public library and hates Ronald McDonald even more and that Quakers wear turtlenecks, we dug out the Wee-Sing videos from the basement. Our joy was short-lived when we couldn't get sound so we ended up watching two hours of Cops. From one extreme to the other.
Oh New Hampshire, how I've missed you!