I took a shortcut Friday afternoon from my office to my barber shop that took me through an industrial area where I used to spend a lot of time.
I hadn’t been on that part of Oxmoor Road in Homewood for about 15 years. Several of the printing companies I used to deal with — when I was a political consultant — are located in the area, so I was flooded with memories of late-night visits to do press-checks on mail pieces for my clients.
I printed dozens of jobs at Craftsman Printing right over there. Across from them was the old building where PressTech used to be before the owner — a man who did me more favors than I can count — unexpectedly killed himself on the press floor late one night.
My memory was flooded with faces and images and sensations of my time in the area. Part of me enjoyed the sweetly bitter sensation of experiencing a past which is now dead, but another part of me wanted to leave the area and never return. And then I had a sudden thought.
Memory Lane is a one-way street — and it’s a dead end.

We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love
When does healthy love become nothing but unhealthy obsession?
Pro-free market candidates don’t promise price targets on gasoline
‘Cash for clunkers’ was an even bigger clunker than we first realized
Nelson Mandela overcame anger at oppression to become a hero
In bad times, human nature starts looking for some new scapegoats
The more I see of death, the more determined I am to live life fully