We got up early, dug the car out, and headed out for day in Providence. Went first to the house where I grew up on the East Side, from four years old on. I left that house when I was 14 and my family moved to Atlantic City. I have few memories of that place, other than of the antiques my mother skillfully acquired and my bassett hound, Sam, and of the room where I kept my tropical fish. One of the highlights of my younger life was helping develop a cross breed – Mollys and Platys – in my Frankenstein/Lab like fish room. Got on the cover of Tropical Fish Hobbyist for that. Maybe the high point of my childhood, besides handing out in the Rochambeau Library.

The sun came out and I drove Maria around, showed her this part of my life, took her to meet my parents in the cemetery where they are buried, and then we walked all over Thayer Street and Brown University, where I hung out quite a bit as a kid, drawn to the notion that creative things were happening behind those Ivy walls. Disorienting going back there again today. Then to Benefit Hill and downtown for seafood. Providence is looking good, mostly, but as I remembered from my childhood, many neighborhoods there are still struggling. I tried to find my grandmother’s house, but I think it’s gone. That’s the thing about going back. It isn’t always there.