Homemade Ghosts: Fading Memories of Childhood

Homemade Ghosts

The neighborhood where I grew up, isn't what it used to be. All I have are these crumbling memories of what once was. Fragmented pieces of the past. Much of what once was.......

The neighborhood has been part of my life since the very early 1990s. It's a small block. Six houses all together. None of them the same. There once was seven of them, but after the house sat vacant and sale for so long, a certain neighbor wanted to have a bigger yard for their dog.


The neighborhood used to be pretty special. An old red brick street. It's only a memory now. It's there, but underneath several layers of blacktop pavement. A few summers ago, I sat on the front porch one morning and watched the city street maintenance crew do it. Just to remember the moment. Over and done with. All before lunch time. I looked on at the idle trucks in the blissful summer heat. Whelp, there goes the neighborhood.


The neighborhood is filled with ghosts......


Jacob, lived a few houses down from me in a two story Italian-style white stucco house. He was an early childhood friend that I could count on. Whenever I was outside, he'd come running from his house to mine. Stuttering away about something amazing. He'd endlessly trip over the rock and pebble paved circle driveway next door. He'd be all dirt faced. Clothes a bit tattered. Frantically flaying his arms all about. Wielding the newest GI Joe or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. Being a 90s kid, I was deeply envious of his nice collection.


It always took a few moments to fully comprehend what in the world Jacob was talking about. He tended to mumblely blunder and jumbley jitter and stumble stutter at a rat-a-tat-tat rate of hyper-charged speed.


My mom had to constantly remind him, "slowwwwww down, Jacob."


Being a boy and all. I magically knew what he was saying. At least, from time to time. Otherwise, I tilted my head, squinted at him, and tried my darndest to fully understand.


The tall, white two story house across the street is no more. Just a big sea of grass for the neighbor dog. I occasionally would ponder on the porch at times, gazing at it. Daydreaming. Daydreaming about the chestnut golden haired, uber-smart girl that lived there. Distant friend and secret crush. She'd always come over and sit cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of me. She'd examine her bug collection in wild and gleeful excitement. Her glasses poking up against the dull plastic box. Watching the tiny ants and beetles. She could go on and on, explaining the scientific facts she knew about each insect she had caught. All the while, I'd just stare back.


She had a younger brother that came about some years later, and we'd occasionally play together. His name was Matthew.


One moment stands out the most. I was resting on the hot summer blacktop driveway. My back against the closed garage door. White paint peeling way, looking up at the little guy.

"I'm all pooped out," I managed to breath through the humid air. The sweat was dripping down my forehead.


Little Matthew looked over at me, about ready to shoot a basket, and his eyes grew wide. Startled.


"Whoa!" He started to look at me in deep fascination and walked over to me and sat cross-legged next to me. The basketball dribbling away to hide in the cool shade of the bushes.


"You don't have any more poop left in you?!" He asked me. Awe-struck.


"No! No! Haha! I didn't mean it like that," forgetting his young mind didn't understand the metaphor. "What I meant to say, was, that I'm tired. That's what "pooped out" means.


I started to laugh some more and gulp for air in the humid summer heat.


"Well," he said, "when you get unpooped, can you play some more?" He asked me casually, getting up and running to get the ball to play some more. Unfazed by the humidity.


A few blocks away, there's train tracks. A passing train is hypnotic and beautiful. The sound of a train horn. That low crying banshee wail of a whistle. Soft at first. Gradually growing loader. It's such an event. Most especially in the summer. If you're brave enough to suffer from the heat and have all the windows and doors open, you'd think the train was right outside. It was something I had grown so used to that I stopped paying attention to the sound. The beat. But, you can't help but realize it. The sound. Rushing through town. Windows rattling. Thunder booms. Boxcar. Boxcar. Boxcar. Boxcar. Clickity clack. Clickity clack. Each box car, almost like a somber funeral train. Slow rigid speed. At first. Then a deafening roar. That noise. Noise. That noise was everything and nothing all at once.


But.......That banshee wail has stopped. People complained.


But, you can still listen to the train. It stirs in the distance. Boxcar. Boxcar. Boxcar. Clickity clack. Clickity clack. A ghost rolling through.

The house where my childhood was spent, was once the home of my great-grandparents. Built from the hands of my great-grandpa and grandpa. It's a humbly snug yellowish-beige house. It's a marvel, thinking back, whenever my dad would fix the leaky pipes, patch a hole or paint a wall, they were right there before us, building it up. All I have are flashbulb memories of my great-grandma though. Far too young for me to truly remember her. A blend of fanciful childhood imagination and real memories.


The cold, white painted foundation walls in the basement. The thin lines I would occasionally trace with my fingers.

Who He Once Was......

My dad passed away in 2014. I try not to dwell on it, because so much of him had vanished as he lost his strength, power, and spirit over the course of just a few months in the hospital. It was not something I could really handle when I went to visit him. He had become a shell of a man that I once knew as my father for 30 years of my life. He slowly deteriorated away in front of me. Drifting in and out. Losing consciousness. Just laying there in that hospital bed. Tubes everywhere. Machines beeping. All of it keeping him alive. It was difficult letting him go. 65 years on this earth is not at all enough. I used to think that was old. But now, all the more wiser in my 30s, not so much.

My dad was quite literally, was the real life version of Tim Allen's character, Tim Taylor, from the TV sitcom, Home Improvement, mixed in with his sidekick, Al. Yes, he was a hoarder of tools and a genuine Mr. Fix-It/Mr. Break-It. I was actually a bit stunned when Tim Allen was in the Santa Clause movie, because THAT's my dad, just prior to all the white hair and beard. He had a beer belly gut and brown curly hair. He wore goofy well rounded eyeglasses. He always needed to get his eyebrows waxed. They'd become so bushy, that if he didn't fix them, both of his brows would be upturned in such a way that he looked like some cartoonish smiling super-villain. My dad always wore buttoned up flannel shirts and blue jeans. He never wore sneakers. He always wore these brown penny loafer type of dress shoes. I inherited the trademarked plumbers butt crack from him. I do my very best to wear long t-shirts in order to prevent others from witnessing that unfortunate sight. It was a sight I had to constantly shield my eyes from whenever I was his helper in fixing something around the house or in the garage.

My dad had this very dynamic personality. It was a purely positively energetic type of personality. Very personable and friendly. Wherever he went, no one was really a stranger to him. There are countless stories, tips, tricks, ideas, thoughts and philosophies and advice that my dad shared with me on a constant basis. My dad offered advice whenever possible and I always rolled my eyes. I just endured and listened to what he had to say in order to just be done with it and move on to the next teaching moment. My dad always had a story. A story that would become more and more exaggerated with each telling. He had a jolly beer belly kind of a laugh whenever he joked around and had a good time.


As we came upon the cemetery. One thing stood out that brought a smile to my face. There were 100 people standing in a circle. Friends of his. Surrounding the spot where he was to be placed. All of them. Waiting to help bring him Home.