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
The ‘man in the mirror’ always turns out to be our worst enemy
When times turn too dark in my life, I’m grateful for furry antidepressant
Death of stranger’s dog reminds me how much dogs mean to us
Taking responsibility for mistakes is foreign concept in many lawsuits
As financial pain piles up, things just might turn ugly in America
Still relevant six years later: ‘We’re the Government — and You’re Not’