It's True.......You Can't

There's an old saying....."you can't go home, again".........and maybe if you can, you shouldn't.

A friend and I decided to make a trip, while in Des Moines, down SW 9th Street. For approximately 13 years, I had worked in an office at the end of a small strip mall on that street. The man, for whom I worked, owned a chain of McDonald's Restaurants and a chain of Camelot Dry Cleaners.

We drove from Fleur Drive across Bell over to SW 9th. Nothing looked the same - everything had changed. Of course, I had to take into consideration that it had been well over 30 years!

I suddenly realized that we were passing what looked like the small strip center, so we turned around and went back. Mike pulled the car into the parking lot, and I decided to get out and go into what was once the old Vegas Corp. offices. It was now an eVape shop.

Once inside, I explained (to the very unconcerned young man behind the counter) why I was there. I asked if I could look around.....but it had changed so much.....I recognized nothing.

Have you ever wished you'd just left your memories alone?  

Here I was.....a grown woman who was revisiting memories of 30+ years......and in an eVape shop I felt the tears building in my eyes. What, in the world, would Arch Madden think? He didn't smoke. Would he approve of this?

As I walked outside, I realized that the fish pond that had been outside the office had been replaced with rocks, and the

beautiful rock wall was now just stucco. 

All those memories of years gone by had flooded my mind. 

How could things have changed so much? Why had things changed so much? Where had all the years gone? Where had all the people gone?


The office wasn't the same. The McDonald's Restaurant was gone....there wasn't even one, anywhere, on SW 9th! The lot, where the McDonald's had been was empty except for a storage building.

The strip mall wasn't the same.........everything had changed.....except what had existed in the "Memory Book in my Mind."

When someone says "you can't go home, again".....it's true. And even if you can.......you probably shouldn't!!