There's No Place Like Home...

"What happened to our house?!" My mom still can't believe another family lives in her property -- that was sold over 20 years ago.  "What's with all those bushes? -- we didn't have a tree out front!"  My parents took such great care of their first casita...  I had a chance to visit my old neighborhood recently, so I drove by the house where I grew up, where I became moi.  (Yes, we were one of the first Latino families to hit the lily white neighborhood back then... "Run for your lives -- Mexicans!") I decided to stop and take a picture (maybe I shouldn't have shown it to Mom) and so many memories came flooding back:  Like the time a couple of vicious German Shepherds jumped me as I headed to school.  "Somebody help me! -- these beasts are gonna swallow me whole!" (okay they were Chihuahuas) I took a peek out back where a basketball rim used to hang... "I'm gonna grow really tall and play in the NBA and make millions and -- !"  Yeah, right... Around the corner I saw the convenience store where I was frisked by a clerk who had nothing better to do one day... "Let me check your pockets, kid!" (I looked like a criminal even back then, I guess).  I think back to how my mommy walked me to school every morning... "I can walk by myself, honest."  Finally, she let me walk that last long block on my own (I was a junior in high school -- or was I a senior?).  I remember all those kiddie birthday parties my parents threw for my sister and me... (they quickly turned into "big people" blowouts) I can still see my first ever car in the driveway... "A Chevy Nova, Dad? -- really?!  And then there's the backyard avocado tree that fed us guacamole all those many years... "It needs salt -- and more cilantro."  No doubt about it, you can certainly go home again, at least for a visit...  "I don't know why we ever sold that house -- our house!"  Oh, Mom...