family portrait
by: summer allen (my sister)

I had a fantastic trip home to Ohio. The bus ride? Not so great. It’s hard to have high expectations when it comes to Greyhound though. I took the midnight bus down, which wasn’t so bad. The ride back? Icing on the cake to hell. I cannot even begin to describe the absurdity of the bus taking me from Dayton to Columbus. The driver had an incredibly violent movie playing on the small tvs dispersed throughout the bus. Plus the sound system ran through speakers that we, the passengers, could not control. So imagine full volume gun shots as one character shoots another character in the face. A couple of us were pleading with the driver to turn it off–there were small children on the bus. She never did. Once the movie ended, she turned up the radio, and my seatmates started to pop and clap along to “Apple Bottom Jeans.” The bus from Columbus to Pittsburgh: similar absurdity, different circus. The air conditioning did not work for the duration..on a 90-something degree day. You can let your imagination run from there.

Helped my sister, Jeremy, and Maddie move the last of their things out of the house. The house has been their home for six years, and it’s tough to say goodbye to such a great place. I’m excited that they’re building a new one, but sad to see the old ground go. New chapters beginning.

I miss the open air, the green. I love the city, but home will always be home. I fell asleep to the trains going by my father’s house. Route 4 surprised and confused me–so many things are being built there, so much looks different. But the full length mirror is still on the back of the door to the bathroom, and the Jocko sign still stands. You can’t see the high school from the road because of corn height. The Towne Mall is still there. It is bittersweet.

Oh, and there’s still this guy:



By the way, it’s very hard to take a picture of a 15 month old.