Ah yes, I remember it well...

J and I drove out to my old home today. It was a beautiful day for driving — clear blue bowl of sky above us, still a few golden leaves on the trees, “crisp” temperature when we were outside, but not too cold.

We went to the cemetery where my parents are buried — it was the first time I’d been able to go out there to visit their graves since the interment service on July 9, so I shed a few tears as I stood by their grave. The headstone is not yet in place, there is only a temporary marker, so it’s not easy to see the grave unless one is right up beside it, but it’s there:

The next picture was supposed to show the flock of hundreds of bird (possibly swans?) that were circling overhead, but I needed a different camera. As J said, “Your Dad needs to have his camera here.” If I’d had his camera with the large telephoto lens which he used for his wildlife photography, I could have taken a photo he’d have been proud of. As it is, the photo shows how beautifully cared for the cemetery is (out in the middle of farm fields, several miles from any town, but less than half a mile from the farm where I grew up.)

We then drove the short distance to our farm and drove in the yard where we were greeted by a black dog wagging his big plume of a tail happily. There was another small dog yipping inside the house, but there were no humans in sight. The house has been remodeled, the color has been changed (it’s pale grey instead of the white it always was when I was growing up), and so many trees have been planted around it, that if I’d been shown a photo that just showed the house and the front yard, I don’t think I would have recognized it as my old home. That was rather a shock, actually. The two garages that Dad built were still there (although the tractor shed is leaning precariously), and my old basketball hoop is still on the door of the tractor shed!

We drove into town, and around a bit, saw where I went to school — the buildings downtown are also practically unrecognizable, but the school is fairly much the way it was when I went there in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The way things had changed reminded me of a delightful song from the movie “Gigi” (hence the title of this post). Please click this link to hear Maurice Chevalier claim, “Ah yes! I remember it well…”

Back in the city, we headed straight to the Tea Room where we’d had an English cream tea just after J arrived, and had another English meal to bracket the trip nicely.

J leaves tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye, even though I know I’ll be seeing her in just a few days when I fly down for the Singalong Sound of Music. She’s like a sister to me, and it’s so good to spend time with her. I thank all the powers that are out there for the Internet which introduced these two “sisters.”