Maybe I Can't Go Home Again?

Someone once said about life, “the happiest times are when your children are young.”

I had young children for a long time–30 years–so mine has been a happy life, but I like to revisit happy places and one of them was Monterey, California.

When my husband finished a three and a half year tour on the oldest submarine in the Atlantic Ocean,we moved west to Naval Postgradute School for him to earn his master’s degree.

Everyone agrees, PG School is one of the best billets in the Navy.

Thank you, American taxpayers.

Military folks were home and merely going to school. That meant dinner could be eaten with both parents, you could plan vacations, and even expect the dads to be there for the birth of their children.

We joked about ‘the requisite La Mesa baby;” seemingly every family gave birth while living in La Mesa housing.

Including us.

Living in simple units on a flat hill–a mesa–above Monterey’s fog belt, we savored full time family life.  Teachers from the community vied to teach at La Mesa School–the children were respectful, had two devoted parents and the non-military parents volunteered constantly.

I’d never lived in such an organized community, before.

All the kids played soccer because dads were home to coach. La Mesa boasted the largest cub scout troop in California. It took all day to run the Pinewood Derby on six tracks–with one reserved for parents to keep actual competition limited to the boys.

(The airdale parents would take their son’s wooden cars into the wind tunnel to check for aerodynamics. That was simply unfair . . . )

But last week as I drove up the hill–the one my husband faithfully rode his bike up every day coming home–I saw LaMesa has changed. Instead of the “Capehart” houses the Navy built everywhere, large modern homes often two stories high, dotted the lots.

I recognized the street names–I’d walked those blocks religiously during our years there–but the neighborhood did not look the same.

I got so disoriented, I stopped my car and when a La Mesa mom approached–pushing the requisite baby in a stroller and walking her dog–I got out and asked if I could stroll with her.

“I used to live here,” I explained. “And I’d like to know how La Mesa  has changed. I can show you my ID card . . . ”

She explained about new homes, the busy child care center, and the happiness of having dad around. She was delivering a surprise Halloween treat to a neighbor, “see, we still have traditions here.”

Military life now includes e-mail, Skype, and cell phones with international coverage. Those are positives and I’m thankful.

But it still has long deployments, combat situations and lonely family members left behind. Children still want to touch their parents.

When we came to my old address, I felt a stab. My modern friend explained the military is taking pains to make housing more like what families could get on “the outside,” now.

To do that, though, means tearing down the old and building the new.

They didn’t start with our house, but it’s gone.

The air is the same, as are the pines ringing the housing area. Streets bear familiar names and the baseball diamond hasn’t changed at all. The mini-mart has a neon light but the trees have been trimmed. You can still hear the barking sea lions from down at the Monterey wharf.

The modern wife ruffled her toddler’s hair as we stopped in front of her very nice duplex. “It’s a great place to live and we’re happy.”

Even if I couldn’t go home again, I was glad to hear it.