It was raining ...

 when I headed to Frankfort that day. I wasn't sure why I felt the need to revisit these places ... but I did. I first headed to Central Ave.

This was the house where I grew up. I was brought home to a house on Armstrong Street but ... this is where I grew up. The tree in the front that you see, well my Grandpa Lucas planted that tree the spring we moved in ... it would be about 43 years of growth ... it's the tree that I learned to climb first- building confidence that I could climb to the top of the apple tree at Grandpa Smith's ... it's the tree I propped my bike against ... the tree that held a nest with eggs in it that I watched hatch ... the tree I was sitting by the last time my Grandpa Lucas brought me home ...

The window on the left, is the one I would sit at every night and wonder a million things ... it is the window from which I saw the Northern Lights when I was in the second grade ... it is the window that every night would transport me to the prairie, New York City, London, where ever the book that I was pouring myself into was set, that's where each night transported me to, unless reality became too loud ... it was also the window from which I saw my father stumble up the stairs a hundred times before I was 5 ... the window which gave me the first hint that it was time to climb into the closet ... the window where I would pull my knees up every single night and ask God to make it all stop ...

The porch where I would pretend that I was leaping out of a plane ... pretend that I was Evil Knievel and bust up my bike ... write my spelling words with gravel ... peek in the picture window to check out what was happening ... start out every Friday night on waiting for my dad to come- then I moved to the tree ... the porch where sat a through a million raindrops because they concealed so much ... and the placed where a thousand pick up games of tag, kick the can, hide and seek, basketball and baseball began ... the very location that I decided i would be a teacher someday ...and the place I taught myself how to ride my bike believing that those wheels would be the answer and take me far, far away ...

The door ... well those are memories I will keep to myself this time.