Monday, March 23, 2009

A quarter century later

Twenty-five years ago today, we left Ypsilanti, Mich., and moved to Minneapolis. For some reason, the date was emblazoned on my brain.

A few years ago I was in the old neighborhood, which was fairly depressing. Mom and Dad had always said the plan was to live there for a couple of years and then move to Ann Arbor, but considering we couldn't sell that house even when it was time to move to Minnesota, I can see why that didn't happen.

I remember being bummed at the time
about leaving my friends and such. But it turned out alright.

Hopefully Elizabeth and Robert feel the same way 25 years from now. I don't think Colleen will notice.

The last day at St. Francis of Assisi school in Ann Arbor, Neil and I both had gotten pink eye, so we were leaving school early. I remember my sixth-grade teacher sending me down to the office with some meaningless paperwork so they could get set up for my going-away party. We'd only started going to that school that year, but it was a nice gesture.

Dad will remind us, if I don't, so I'll just note that on the drive home from school I threw up in the back of the car. That was a car he had borrowed from a co-worker to bring us home, since we had only one car and he took the bus to work.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

They were that happy to get rid of you that they threw a party. Hmm - definitely somehting to note as a harbinger of future events!

Neil said...

I remember they were building a new hospital or something and I was upset that I was not going to get to see it finished. Years later I did see the building, which was 20 years old at this point and looked it and made me feel old.

I also remember you throwing up in the car.

The Coleman Family said...

Didn't it seem like they were building that hospital forever?

Going back years later -- I think it was 2005 -- it was amazing how much I still knew about how to get around town and what was where. For certain, different things were in some of those spaces after 20 years, but it was all findable.

By the way, I can't imagine turning Robert loose to wander through Ann Arbor in third or fourth grade like I was.

Neil said...

They were simpler times, my friend. (They weren't really - crime was much, much worse back then. I guess we're just more paranoid now?)

Oh, I also remember eating Rice Chex for breakfast out of a styrofoam cup because everything had been packed.