my stomping grounds

Most of the first 12 years of my life were spent in the vicinity of 99th and Holmes.  The local landmark there has always been Gomer's.  I went to elementary school at 105th and Holmes and would have gone to Center South Jr High on 103rd had we not moved to California.

I skateboarded at Colonial Presbyterian.  I rode my bike across Holmes and Wornall roads to visit friends.  I played neighborhood baseball and football in Linden Hill and snuck into the pool at Indian Heights.  I went to vacation bible school at Holmeswood Baptist Church.  When 435 was being built, we climbed the fence, threw our bikes over, and rode up and down the newly poured concrete.  We owned the neighborhood.

My Parents moved back to this neighborhood when we came back from California in 1976.  They both finished their time on earth in this neighborhood.  My sister still lives there.

I guess things are changing in my old stomping grounds.  Besides the homeless people I met at Taco Bell the other day, I guess there are many others in the area.  I hear that they are on the corner of 95th and Holmes, trying to collect money from motorists.  We used to go to the Dairy Queen on the SW corner of that intersection. 

My sister tells me that in the woods just east of the Indian Heights pool there is a homeless camp.  Tents and camp fires and such.  She tells me that every now and then the neighbors call the police and the police run the homeless people off.  Which prompts a question or two- how do you run off homeless people?  Where do they go?

Seems like just the other day we were playing softball at the Evangel Temple field and having bicycle races around Winslow Place Circle.

You grow up a certain way and you expect some things to stay the same.  But we have no guarantees.  God is still good and life goes on.

It's a melancholy day in God's world, lets go look for the good.