You Really Can't Go Home Again

I think I mentioned that on Saturday I went north from Tacoma to my old hometown zone of the Skagit Valley to meet my little nephew, Spencer Jack, for the first time. I may get around to blogging about that later.

In the meantime I came face to face with a visual metaphor for the cliche "You Can't Go Home Again." That cliche had multi-meanings for me on Saturday. Another cliche also came to mind that day, that being "absence makes the heart grow fonder." I found that cliche to be totally not true, as experienced by me, well, more accurately, there should be a qualifier, as in, "in some cases absence makes the heart grow fonder." I think there has to be some fondness to begin with. In the fondness-challenged cases the cliche should be "absence makes the annoying personality traits even more annoying upon fresh exposure."

That photo above is of my old house in Mount Vernon. It was sold in 2002. I had been marveling at how beautiful Mount Vernon was looking, all lush and green with tall trees everywhere, as if the entire town, from freeway exits to vacant lots had been landscaped by a skilled designer. Such a contrast to Fort Worth where they let weeds and litter decorate the freeway exits to their #1 tourist attraction, the Fort Worth Stockyards, among many other locations.

And then I got to my old house. It was the only eyesore I saw in all of Mount Vernon. Weeds covered the driveway. The landscaping had grown totally out of control. The roof top deck no longer had plants growing on it. I wish I'd not lain eyes on this. I was party to the entire construction of that house and did the landscaping myself. Now it's a ruins. I really can't go home again.

That photo of a long street is Fir Street in Mount Vernon, looking east towards the Cascade Mountain Foothills and my old house. My old weed-covered house is located in the trees you see at the end of Fir Street.

Mount Vernon is sort of the center of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The Skagit River cuts through Mount Vernon with bridges connecting the two sides, not unlike the Trinity River cutting through Fort Worth. No one in Mount Vernon, however, would ever dream of doing something so goofy as damming up the Skagit River to make a little lake and some canals for Mount Vernon, like what is currently underway in Fort Worth.

In the photo we are crossing the Skagit River, heading towards downtown Mount Vernon and my old house, which at the point this photo was taken I still thought I wanted to see. That thing sticking up in the photo to the left of the bridge is the Tulip Tower. Tulips are a big deal in the Skagit Valley.