I'm heading back to Washington, Utah tomorrow for Grandma Lova's funeral. Well, sort of - turns out that there's no room at the inn. They're holding the Senior Games in St George, so the hotels are all completely booked. Somehow, the fact that there's no room for me in my hometown seems... a little too Morrisettish.
It's not really my hometown anymore, anyway. The Washington that I knew and drifted in and out of for most of my childhood isn't there anymore. It's been overtaken by snowbirds and Californians, and land that struggled to provide for 400 or so farmers and ranchers now has over 20,000 residents. Quentin Niessen's general store is long gone, and I'm betting that they don't show movies on a bedsheet in the wardhouse courtyard on Friday and Saturday nights anymore, either. Grandpa's ranch is filled with condos now. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing - just that it's not what it was when I was born.
Maybe that's why they say you can't go home again. When you do, it's not there. And I'm not sure why I'm feeling so nostalgic - lord knows I don't miss the 118 in the shade with no air conditioning, or the red dirt dust that clogged everything. I do kind of miss them testing the air raid siren every day right at noon, though. And the bookmobile. I really, really miss the bookmobile. And the knowledge that everyone in town knew me as Lova and Dewane's granddaughter - you know, LaRae's girl. There's something very validating about roots that stretch back a century or so. But when a town grows like lightening, those roots tend to snap. Maybe that's what I miss.
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