Wasn't it Just Yesterday?

It's strange... I didn't think it would affect me at all considering I moved away from the family home 40 years ago, but... I found myself laying awake last night walking from room to room and about the yard of the house that was sold yesterday and now belongs to a stranger.

I paused at each doorway, looking around (all in my mind of course) remembering events or views from 40, 45, 50 years and more ago. I remember sharing a bedroom with my older brother, of riding a pedal car round and round the basement and crashing into the hot water tank, of playing badminton in the back yard with my mother, of mowing the lawn, the smell of the lilac bush in the corner, the maple tree and the gold fish that lived in the little pond near where two dogs are buried.

I remember picking potato bugs off the plants in the garden and shielded flashlights searching out night crawlers for fishing the next day.  I remember the flower beds with the Begonia and Gladiola plants that my father took such pride in each year and sitting on the front porch in the evenings playing I spy with my little eye...

I remember the Saturday night hockey games on TV (only 3 English channels and 1 French with just 6 teams in those days) when my Uncle Cecil would come over, bringing hot dogs and buns for a late night snack. I remember good times and not so good times, of card games and crockinole matches and playing marbles using a hole we had chipped out in the cement floor of the basement and the dart games that we never could beat my father at.

I remember the planting of the cedar hedge around the property that replaced the Chinese Elm trees that were dying out and playing on the board piles along the river, and being reminded by the sting of a willow switch on the back of my bare legs that I wasn't supposed to be so close to the edge of the river bank.

I remember the annual making of the dressing from the secret recipe my Grandmother had written out on a piece of paper towel (that I still have) and the challenge and discomfort of seeing who could eat the most at Christmas dinner (3 guys and only 2 drumsticks).  I remember a thousand details that in time became me...

I remember.... no, that's enough.... time to move on... again.