A Short Trip Home

Written last year after returning from a visit to my hometown. - Rambler1

My mother, who lives in Zanesville, Ohio, was slated for a hip replacement on Nov. 11. She is also a cancer patient. I had not been home in almost a year and a half. Normally I would have done so before then but now that I work through an agency I don’t get paid for any time I take off. Since my wife has not worked for a year now that means I can hardly afford to miss a day of work. Yet there are times when you have to do what you have to do. I knew I would be off automatically on Veteran’s Day, so I took Friday off and rented a car. My wife had a job interview scheduled for Monday, well before I’d return so she could not go. So I loaded my suitcases along with my sons and took off.2

The entire trip takes about eight hours if you don’t make a lot of stops. Within three hours you begin getting into the mountains after leaving Durham and passing Winston-Salem. So from the Blue Ridge Parkway of North Carolina, through Virginia and the West Virginia Turnpike it’s all mountains. Driving through them was a therapy of sorts. The trees were in full color splendor. There were times when you would wind around some mountain ridge and see a vast expanse of kaleidoscopic color in a valley below. The beauty was soothing and breathtaking simultaneously. You always seem to forget at least one important item when taking a trip. I discovered I’d forgotten the thermos of coffee I’d prepared, with my French press no less. Important since I was the sole driver. Fortunately Starbucks has made its way into the mountains. I had left Durham shortly before 9 am and pulled up in front of my sister Gail’s house around 4:30 pm. 3

We had hardly been in town for an hour when my brother-in-law Raymond called. He is married to my other sister and their family lives in Cleveland. Raymond drives a truck and he was coming off a run from Columbus, which is about fifty miles from Zanesville. He knew we were coming and told me to meet him at a local McDonald’s. There he picked up my sons and Gail’s son Jordan and took them to Cleveland. They would return Sunday afternoon. So within two hours of arriving I was childless. I was not wearing the right shoes to jump up and click my heels but that didn’t prevent me from doing so. I spent the evening visiting my mother and then my father.4

Zanesville is a small, quaint town. It was a nice place to grow up as physical environment goes. It is named after Zane Grey who wrote a series of western style novels. The entire region is very hilly and affords nice views of distant hills. The town itself is vegetating. The people who live there mostly have to find jobs in neighboring towns. There are historical sections of town that still look the same; houses that look like something seen in a civil war photo. One part of town still has brick streets with remnants of trolley car tracks. There are some things one can only get there. Unfortunately they are things that promote a full waistline. The Conn’s potato chip company makes the best chips in existence. I’ve never tasted better. Yet they have never expanded outside southeastern Ohio, though they do have a web site where chips can be ordered. Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl serves ice cream and all manner of peanuts and chocolates in a fifties style soda shop atmosphere. The place looks just like it did when I was growing up. Donald’s Doughnuts makes killer pastries on the premises. Rittenberger’s meat packing company makes a home-style bologna that is unequaled anyplace I’ve ever been. I hear stories all the time of people who no longer live in Zanesville always stocking up on these items when they’re in town.5

I rolled out of bed Saturday morning, put on my jogging clothes and hit the street. I ran down to Putnam Hill Park. This park is basically on a cliff, which is why people who live in the area are said to live on “the hill”. There is an overlook there from which you can see the Muskingum and Licking rivers and much of the rest of town. I ran through the park. There is a trail that goes down through a small wooded area that I always used to travel as a boy when walking downtown. I took this trail only to find it in great disrepair. In several places large trees lay across the path, which itself was buried under layers of leaves. I finally emerged on the road that circles the base of the park cliffs and crossed it to the railroad trestle that crosses the Muskingum River. I hadn’t walked that trestle for twenty-five years. I remembered several times getting caught on it as a boy when a train came. Crossing the trestle I got off and ran down the path that runs parallel between the river and the canal, which led down river to the Sixth Street Bridge. I ran across the bridge and back up the road to the old path, the same one in disrepair. It is steep and I could not run up it with all the junk on the trail. So I walked it, being invaded by boyhood memories. I felt sad that the city didn’t keep the trail clear.6

As soon as you emerge from the trail back into the park there is a small street. Across that street is a house that sits close to the edge of the park cliff. Behind it the yard was full of leaves, sloping up into a hill. I had always fantasized about living in this house when I walked by it as a teenager. It was a nice, peaceful looking cottage-like house of soft white with light yellow bordering. From the back yard you had your own personal overlook. I had never been in that house or even the yard. But the house looked empty. There were two oak trees out front, golden leaves shimmering in the sun. I had to go there. I walked around to the back and looked through the window. There was some trash on the floor and an old washing machine. Some of the wall had been stripped exposing the inner beams. The house looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for some time. 7

I wondered why nobody was trying to fix up the place and live there. I still loved it. A friend later told me he thought no one lived there because in recent years the drug activity in the park had skyrocketed. Again, I felt sad. I stood in the backyard and looked out across the overlook, my spirit an intersection of sadness, birds chirping, a mild breeze and the gentle rustle of leaves. I felt a slight melancholy at the madness of such useless waste. As I turned to leave I walked out of the yard and up the street; lined on both sides by a full panoply of brilliantly multicolored trees, flora more gorgeous than any Hollywood star ever dreamed of being. Their aura seemed to reach down and draw out my mild melancholy, reminding me in some wordless manner that the real will always outlast the ephemeral. I picked up my jog back to my sister’s.8

My sons came back Sunday evening and early Monday morning we returned home having spent an all too brief but beneficial time with friends and family. My mother seems to be recovering well. I wish I could have stayed longer. But it was good to get away for a time.9