Tonight I was able to start my tour of catching up with old friends in the hometown, which translated into my first real drive through Kansas City.  Outside of my non-stop bitching and moaning about the snow and freezing weather (and that will continue),  a lot has changed since my time growing up here.  Like every metropolis there’s a ‘new’ downtown (the Power and Light District I still have only passed by at the moment), there’s new restaurants that have sprung up (I’m being told about burger joints I may or may not get to hit up), there’s a new arena I’ll try to get to if time allows.  Watching the first season of Mad Men has served as a good reminder though of how your memories good and bad will always shape who you are.

Driving down 71 South reminded me of an apartment I had when I was on my own.  It was an apartment I was quite, um, ‘active’ in, and I’ll never forget one morning my next door neighbor (who I had never seen) come out of her apartment as my lady was leaving, and instantly recognized me from my party-walking days in the Burge at KU.  It was one of those ‘Kansas is WAY too small for me’ moments :)…

Driving past Wornall and Holmes, I remember spending many a Monday night stopping off by the corner store, picking up some Southern Comfort or St. Ides, and commiserating about our women troubles with my brother from the fraternity days.  I don’t miss my ‘Ike and Tina’ relationship as it was known, but I’ll never forget it…

Taking my father to the Dollar General took me past the grocery store where I had my first job.  My first manager had one of the worst toupees I had ever seen.  And I remember having a mad crush on every teenage clerk I bagged groceries for, although in retrospect I think that was clearly the raging hormones of a teenage boy talking….

Down the street from there was the Wendy’s where my best friend worked growing up.  He was off one night so we rolled through the drive through trying to get the hook up.  I wasn’t being a fanboy, I was being an ass when I had Thriller in the cassette player and started bumping it (loud enough for his co-workers to hear it).  Those were the peak of the Beavis and Butthead days…

If I don’t get snowed in, we’ll be back with more of the ‘Black Wonder Years’ after this…