Pink Think: “Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.” – Willa Cather
Ghost Moon Night Query update: 6 no’s out of 16. I’m getting ready to send out another batch.
I’m loving this novel I am working on right now. I get to put on happy 80’s music and it gets my writing juices flowing. (I was an 80’s teenager.)
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This past weekend, I drove to northern Utah with two of my children to go to Hardware Ranch. My kids and I left the elk winter feeding grounds at 3:30 and were just about to make the three hour drive home when, on impulse, I decided to stop and buy “Happy Family” from a Chinese restaurant in Logan.
My heart belongs to my birthplace Manila, Philippines, but Logan, Utah, is my second hometown. I first arrived in Logan in 1987, when I was fifteen going on sixteen, to join my mom who was attending a summer seminar. She stayed to pursue her masters; I joined her to get a bachelor’s degree in English from Utah State University. We were college roommates.
As I drove down Main Street, I tried to pick out the landmarks that I remembered from when I was going to school there.
The attic Mom and I rented my last few years there is still up, still lime green, but the thrift store behind it has been replaced by another business. Bluebird Fountain and Candy shop is still there. The two-story building that used to house a Mexican restaurant called Chi-Chi’s is more dignified-looking, i.e. boring; it looks like it now houses a realtor instead. We used to stop at Chi-Chi’s after Latin parties, sixteen-year-old me hanging out with an over-21 crowd, sort of like the mascot/designated (non) driver. But the Italian place called Gia’s and the raucous Factory Pizzeria below are still there.
In Logan, I loved, I cried, I laughed; I drove my first car; I experienced the wonder of my first snowfall, I learned to be friends with my mother; I made the switch from business major to English major despite my dad’s not-too-fierce opposition; I met the boy I was to eventually marry; I made the decision to join the LDS Church despite my family’s fierce opposition; I married.
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“Happy Family” (a stir fry dish with meat and vegetables) as I remember it was quite different, and I was a little disappointed.
I thought about driving up to the campus and showing my kids where I stayed, to look at the buildings. But I knew that the campus has undergone lots of changes. The library I spent countless hours “studying” under my locker is no longer there. There is a roundabout where I used to cross the street at the Student Center.
I didn’t drive up; instead, I pointed the car towards the highway and made the three hour drive home. Some things are just better left a happy memory.
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Do YOU have a second hometown? What was your favorite landmark?
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