This post won’t mean much to most people who happen to read it — but it does to me.

I spent the day with a close high school friend (Class of 75) wandering around my hometown. Towards the end of the day we caught up with a second classmate and swapped stories and brought each other up to date on what’s happened in the last 15-20 years!

I wasn’t able to bike around town this time — Buster was our mode of transport. It seemed like my town had shrunk about 10 sizes! Distances were so much shorter than I remembered them from my youth. I wonder now why I didn’t venture farther from home than I did? Hardly ever left Portland and for that matter spent most of my childhood playing with a dozen or so neighbors from Penny Corner Lane!

In addition to driving by the two houses I lived in — one on Spring Street and one on Bartlett Street, we visited the Quarry View park (brownstone is what Portland is famous for…), wandered the ‘downtown’ area and had breakfast at Sarah’s on Main. I took pictures of Buck Library, the Town Hall and other landmarks that until now I think I only had mental images of. It will be nice to have some photos to share with my friends and family back in Colorado.

One of the more emotional moments was visiting the Swedish Cemetery and locating my grandparents grave marker. It took me about 30 minutes to find it — and in the end it was only about a half dozen graves away from where Buster was parked!

Not sure if or when I’ll get back here again — and I am so thankful to have had today in Portland!