Indiana Trip - leg 3

Going back home isn't the same as it used to be in the town that I grew up in. First of all, the town is the third largest city in Indiana and isn't really a town and now it has twice or more the growth than when I lived there. I don't know my way around unless I stay on the roads I know, and because I wasn't driving it felt more like a visit than coming home. Secondly, the restaurants that I insisted I needed to visit weren't as succulent and delicious as I remembered, although it didn't stop me from eating. Lastly, seeing my house didn't cause me to choke up or get that hurt feeling I use to get in my chest. Maybe I've really moved on.

Fall Festival - I picked this week to visit because I thought it would be fall like and because the annual festival, where they close the entire west side of town, was held. The festival was and still is a big deal. Put on by the Westside Nut Club there are vendors selling everything from pronto pups, a hot dog wrapped in a pancake dough and fried, to international foods of all sorts, to fried desserts of any kind like fried oreos, fried twinkies, and monster elephant ears. There are carnival rides and games and music and the crowning of various beauty queens. I can remember going as a youngster and as an adult during lunch hour from work. I hadn't been there in about 25 years so I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane.

I went twice to the festival, meeting up with friends each time to walk around and eat. I had my first pronto pup and a lemon squeeze that was so sugary my teeth instantly craved a toothbrush. I had a Thai coffee, and by my second go round at the festival I was done.

Friend Karen: "It's sort of lost its luster, hasn't it?"

Yep. I think the pull of the festival is gone for me. It was 80+ degrees and all I had in the suitcase was black short sleeve shirts and the fried food made my stomach ache. Walking around and meeting up with old friends was great, but I would have rather done that sitting down in a restaurant so we could have caught up in a quiet and cooler environment. 

Susan's Family - My SIL's family lives in the city. Her middle sister and her husband housed us for four nights and let us come and go as we pleased. They were very accommodating and great hosts, and we didn't want for a thing. Susan's parents are two of the kindest people, and while they tended to make her roll her eyes and sigh a lot, they had me in stitches. Her mother was turning 80 the following week and so we had a dinner party for her at her favorite restaurant. I got to enjoy chatting with Susan's siblings, her nieces and nephews, and great nieces and nephews. There was cake and plenty of laughter.

Because Susan doesn't get home often due to her living in the frozen tundra and refusing to drive on snow and ice, she has to cram in helping her parents when she is in town. We did all sorts of errands, and cleaning, and electronic teaching, and offering up medical advice. Her father was on vacation for the festival as he owns a business on the west side and so we took them out to eat and got to spend plenty of time entertaining them. Her mother taught us a new card game, and we saw a side of her mother that I had never experienced prior; she's a card shark.

Her mother couldn't grasp our relationship and called me her niece while everyone corrected her. She then tried to refer to me as an in-law, but that just confused her and everyone else and so she took to calling me her "special friend" which raised a lot of eyebrows wherever we went (especially in Indiana).

Me: "Geneva, people are thinking you're my sugar mama and that we're a couple."
Geneva: "Oh, hon, I don't have any money so you'll have to be my sugar mama."

We picked up Susan's grand niece and nephew from their schools two of the days. I know these two only from social media, but we are great buddies now since we shared the backseat of the car on our journeys. I probably haven't seen their mother since she was their age so it was fun getting to know her as an adult and as a mother, but her kids were even more spectacular. The oldest caught on to my humor right off and had no fear giving it right back to me. Her little brother was just as fun as his sister. We picked him up last and always had to wait in a long line of cars. The first time we realized all the cars had signs hanging in their windows with the children's names and so I used some of his sister's paper and colored pencils and drew a beautiful sign with his name on it. The second time we forgot that sign so we did it electronically, drawing his name on an Iphone. That was also the day I yelled out the window to all of the kids waiting in a cluster for their pick-ups.

Me: "Hey everyone, do you know K? We're his family!"

He will be the talk of his class for quite some time after our visit.

Friends - I usually stay with my childhood friend Robin when in town, but as fate had it she was going to Florida for an annual trip with her friend. We had one day to see one another and she met us at the Fall Festival. We walked and talked and spent approximately twenty minutes with each other before Susan announced she was too hot to continue and that her time at the festival was over. We hoped Robin would join us later that evening for the  birthday celebration, but she had other plans and was leaving bright and early the next morning. She made it to Florida, spent one day relaxing on the beach, and then had to turn right around and come home due to Hurricane Nate. That will show her that when I'm in town she needs to drop all plans and stay there with me.

A month or so before my trip a friend I worked with reached out to me on Facebook to say hello. We chatted and then three days later she had a stroke. I took that as another sign that I needed to travel to Indiana and she was the first person I contacted after I bought my ticket. We met at the festival as well (she looked great and is doing well) and it was like the fifteen years we had been a part hadn't even happened. We talked and laughed and caught up as best as we could walking around a crowded and loud festival. We ended up having pie in a nearby restaurant and then we drove around the city just talking. It wasn't long enough so I hope we don't end up going another fifteen years without touching base.

My last meet up was with my neighbor and second mother who lived across the street from me growing up. She still lives in the same house and visiting her there brought back tons of memories. I suppose if I can't go back to 8200 I can always go back to 8201. She has remodeled it, but many things were still the same and it was a nostalgic trip. She looks the same and is full of energy and exuberance. She took me out to the country club where I spent many summers playing and eventually working. Many changes there. It isn't the same place, like so much of the city and haunts, but I think I realize that its the people in the city that really makes it home and not the other stuff.

Eating - I had all of my food. I ate donuts daily. I insisted on my pizza. I ate at G.D. Ritzy's which out of all of the places still tasted the same and was the best. We ended the last night by going to a local ice cream place where I got to eat some choco-creams, little ice cream balls covered in chocolate. I skipped the raspberry sorbet shake, but did entertain everyone with stories of how we would order those in the drive-thru and liven it up with rum we had hidden in the back seat. It was the perfect ending to a nice trip down memory lane and a nice visit back to the place I'll always call home.

Thank you everyone for the hospitality, the visits, the food, the entertainment, and the love. Thank you for taking time to visit, to catch up, and to make my return home a special one. I consider all of you family and love you to the moon and back! Until next time....