Who says you can never go back home?

How does the old saying go:  “Once you leave home, you can never go back”?

I’m from Walkerton, the capital of Bruce County – Ontario’s playground.  The home of great tasting water, chicken and alkalide batteries.  A small town for sure, but when I was growing up, seemed like the largest place on earth.

I don’t believe the line “You can never go back”.  I know I can, and you can too!  Here’s how:

Maneuvers  Â			Distance	 MapsÂ
	1:	Start out going EAST on FATHER DAVID BAUER DR toward ERB ST W / RR-9.	0.3 miles	Â
	2:	Turn LEFT onto ERB ST W / RR-9 E.	0.2 miles	Â
	3:	Turn LEFT onto KING ST N / RR-15.	1.9 miles	Â
	4:	Take the HWY-85 N ramp.	0.2 miles	Â
	5:	Merge onto PROVINCIAL ROUTE 85 N.	6.4 miles	Â
	6:	Turn LEFT onto PROVINCIAL ROUTE 85 / RR-85 / LISTOWEL RD. Continue to follow PROVINCIAL ROUTE 85.	3.1 miles	Â
	7:	Turn LEFT onto PROVINCIAL ROUTE 86 / CR-86.	15.1 miles	Â
	8:	Turn RIGHT onto CR-9 / CR-3 / CR-140 / ROAD 140. Continue to follow CR-9 / CR-140 / ROAD 140.	11.5 miles	Â
	9:	Turn RIGHT onto PROVINCIAL ROUTE 23 / CR-123.	<0.1 miles	Â
	11:	Stay STRAIGHT to go onto PROVINCIAL ROUTE 4 / CR-4 / YONGE ST S. Continue to follow PROVINCIAL ROUTE 4 / CR-4.	1.2 miles	Â
	12:	End at Walkerton, ON CA		Â
Total Est. Time: 1 hour, 46 minutes     Total Est. Distance: 68.53 miles

 

 

There are some interesting things on the Demographics page:

• The ratio of men to women in Walkerton is almost 1:1
• The median age is 39.6 – which to me seems like a fairly high age – retirement community?
• The average employment income in Walkerton is lower than the provincial average by a significant margin.

Summary, I know how to get back home, but they’re right:  “I never can really go back”.  Wouldn’t make any money doing it.

I went up for the weekend to visit my mom.  All weekend I had this sense that I could almost capture that feeling I had growing up there.  Things have changed so little that when driving around town and walking through my neighbourhood, I had this feeling I was frozen in time or even more, if I so desired, I could turn back time.  Very hard to describe.  A big part of this feeling came from the fact that there is a significant amount of snow on the ground.  More so than I’ve ever experienced down here in the “Tri-city region”.  Because of the lake effect, Walkerton is guaranteed to have heavy winters.  Looking around, I couldn’t help but remember the road hockey games and the snow forts we built into the snow banks.

I was unable to escape this feeling for the entire weekend, like I was in a different world.  At mom’s place, when sitting in any particular room, I couldn’t help these visions of youth from filling my head.  Since high school, I have been home many many times.  But this time, for some reason, I couldn’t get the past out of my head.

On Sunday, we went to my ‘home’ church – Sacred Heart.  Catholic church.  I haven’t been there for many years.  I was bombarded over and over with this feeling before during and after the mass.  It’s the same people in the congregation, only they have gotten older.  Some people however looked like they hadn’t aged, and I thought this to be very strange.  Upon further reflection, I’m certain that every one of those people were teachers at my school, or parents of childhood friends.  I find this somewhat disturbing.  It’s been 16 years since I graduated and I cannot believe these particular people still look the same. 

I think I can describe this feeling and you may have a similar feeling when, after many years, you visit the place in which you grew up:  you are tangibly and physically in the place that holds many memories of life before you had any serious responsibilities.  It is like a dreamworld, a fantasyland where you held a minimum wage job, not to pay mortgages or utilities, not to pay tuition, but to be able to party with your pals every Friday and Saturday night.  The only worry was how much crap you were going to get into for cutting 5th period to shoot some stick at the pool hall.  Except now your friends have moved on.  The backdrop remains, but the actors have left.

Walkerton is having a homecoming this year.  An event where people who grew up in town come around for a weekend in the summer to immerse themselves in these memories.  Try to bring back some of that magic.  Before my little excursion last weekend, I though homecomings were, well, dumb.  A good excuse to have a blast, but did anybody really enjoy the ‘homecoming’ part?  I intend to go to my homecoming with eyes wide open.  If some of those actors show up, it’ll be something to see.