

So I grew up kind of poor. It wasn't like a ghetto or anything but there sure weren't a lot of paved roads. I lived in a trailer on a bumpy dirt road with a lot of other trailers. I don't even know where the nearest grocery store was back then but it was kind of a trip. There was a gas station just up the way that had a convenience store with it and you could get some stuff to eat there if you didn't mind paying the extra for the "convenience." Right across the dirt road there wasn't anything but a big field but now it's a subdivision. My grandpa had a big yard and we got to play in that a lot. He even had a pond that you could catch frogs in if you were real patient. It was real quiet at night because there wasn't much traffic and you could really see the stars because there weren't a lot of houses to brighten up the sky at night and there still aren't any streetlights. I remember we weren't allowed in the field across the road because it was private property and we'd get in trouble if any of us got hurt playing over there. We went anyway. My bus stop was always down at the convenience store because there was an old subdivision down there that more kids lived in and I was the only one that lived on the dirt road. I didn't mind the walk because when you're a kid any time that you get to spend alone without any parents or teachers to bother you is a good time and I liked feeling independent and grown-up enough to walk all the way down the street on my own.

Anyway the place is a lot different now. There's a Winn-Dixie and a Wal-Mart and even a Target a bit farther away. That subdivision is there now. The houses are getting kind of run down and the gas station convenience store has an Asian bakery in it now. It's a good bakery and it's the only place in town I know of you can get good meat buns. The new subdivision kind of makes the rest of the neighborhood look poorer than it is cause those old houses were built years and years ago. The trailer I grew up in is a different trailer now and the yard is much smaller because we lost the land and had to move into my grandpa's big yard instead. New people live on the dirt road and I don't know any of them anymore. My grandpa still lives there though and he's still pulling up the same azalea bushes he's been trying to get out of his yard since I was born. He finally only just last year managed to kill the wisteria that's been slowly strangling one of his pine trees for about as long as I've been alive. It's still a good neighborhood and I guess it's grown up a lot since I grew up there.

