I sometimes eat lunch alone at a table on a busy sidewalk by a shopping center with brand new buildings. There’s a fancy new pizza place, a gym, and it looks like a new fast-food restaurant opening up across the street. There’s a new development of houses behind me that seem to have multiplied since I last came here.
I can remember a time when all of those buildings hadn’t yet been built, and in their place lay acres of empty fields. When the only road through town was a tiny little main street lined with old country homes that were more often than not a little run down, but held generations of character. When there were family-owned ma-and-pop shops, and when the sidewalks in the summer were filled with barefooted boys running about with wooden bats over their shoulders.
We used to all meet up at the pool in the morning. Seeing who could do the coolest dive, swim the fastest to the other side, or hold his or her breath the longest. The lifeguards used to blow their whistles and yell at us to stop running, but we did it anyway.
After swimming all day, we wandered around neighborhoods, feeling the dirt under our toes, and peeking out from behinds red maple trees to admire historic homes. We played games, and ran up and down the dirt path.
The sun would set over the mountains behind us, which meant it was time to grab dinner at the old-fashioned pizza place across the street. They had live music and the best fizzing, fruity soda I’ve ever tasted.
One by one, my friends traded their dirty white tank tops and jean shorts for trendy crop tops, Nikes, and the latest iPhone. And one by one, the fields where we used to play hours of endless baseball in our bare feet were replaced by stores and restaurants. And one by one, the ma and pop shops where I used to buy soda -- the kind that still came in glass bottles -- closed down.
Now, my shoes pinch my feet as I walk on the fresh asphalt in the crowded street. The homes I once admired must have shrunk, or perhaps I have grown. The people I used to swim with are now lifeguards that blow their whistle and yell at kids to stop running.
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Hannah Gagnon is from Knoxville, MD. She has worked as a Digital Marketing Coordinator for a non-profit and is an emerging creative writer. She is currently a student at Hagerstown Community College. She enjoys writing poetry and short fiction about nature and the mountainous region where she grew up.