"How I spent 7/30/05" or "all the world's a goddamned phone booth"

I woke up early and IMed with a special someone.  She sent me some of her scholastic essays to peruse.

I packed a notepad and my library copy of Harry Potter and went to a Saturn dealership about 40 miles south.

I attempted to read while my brakes were replaced. They needed it. ("Somebody... stop me!")

I carped and grumbled to myself that all the world's a goddamned phone booth now.  The Saturn dealership is wide open inside and tiled, so I heard everyone yammering into their cellphone, "I'll be there as soon as my car is fixed" and "How is so-and-so?"... and the muzak... and the TV in the waiting area.  But somehow I managed to choke down two more chapters.

I got out earlier than I expected and decided to go see a friend who lives about 10 miles south.  I got to her house and kept on going.  For some reason, I didn't want to stop.

I decided that I would drive the hellish, overcrowded roads and see Miramar again.

After a somewhat meandering route, I found the Hallandale branch library and went inside.  I found a map on the wall and figured out that I needed to go back north and then west again.  I checked out the library and seeing that they also have the same public pc system attempted to use one.  A librarian walked over to me and said "You need to close.  We have people waiting to use the PCs...."  I didn't fuss or explain that the express PCs where I work are for people just like me.  I left, thinking that she was like that co-worker of mine...  you know, the bitchy, officious one.

I noted that when I was a kid, car trips felt like they would never end, and now I see that what felt like hours to me where only spurts of ten or 20 miles.  I passed things I remembered and things that had taken the place of the buildings that I remembered on Pembroke Road.

The Coca-Cola Bottling Plant is now neighbor to a large complex of The Miami Herald.  I made a note to mention that to Dad next ime we chat. I passed the old Gethsemane Church in what was a "black" area and the Seven Sisters BarBQ Pit.  I saw old buildings I knew and new buildings that I did not.

I found the Baptist church at the corner that signalled my old neighbohood and turned onto Tropicana St.  I glanced at the houses were long-gone acquaintances had lived.  I pulled into the driveway of my old home.

The enormous tree next door that I used to climb with Jimmy Armstrong was gone.  Every house looked a little nicer than it had 27 years ago. 

 Seeing the driveway, the front door, I got choked up.  I remember my mother there.  7240 Tropicana St., Miramar, FL  

 I could have pulled over and bawled, but I didn't.  

We have a picture, somewhere, of my parents standing in front of that door, shaking hands and smiling, having just decorated it for Christmas.  I remember love there. 

We moved there when I was about 6 (second grade) and left when I was 13 (freshman year of high school.)  

I decided to check the elementary school next.  Open and breezy when I was a kid, it is now gated and walled.  I saw, too, the church across the street where I attended Girl Scout meetings.  

I'd had enough.  I didn't go to the high school or into the commercial area of town.  I headed back to I-95.  I drove through nearly blinding rain and then calm to get home. 

 Now that I'm home, I don't want to go out like I've been planning to do for several weeks.  But I think I need to.