Can you ever go back home?

Mardi Gras is in the air here in BR, and today I started wondering how Mardi Gras would have gone over in Pratt City. I thought about it for all of 2 seconds before admitting that there is no way in hell that Carnival would have been tolerated at 212. None. Nada. Furgitabutit.

In fact, when I go back to B'ham, I don't recognize it. I don't feel at home. It's different. And that has me wondering if I could go home/move back and be comfortable.

The whole atmosphere is different. People talk funny -- did I talk like that? Do I talk like that now? When we first moved down here I couldn't open my mouth and utter three words before someone would ask (with wide eyes) where I was from. (Shhh! Don't tell anyone, but....I thought they had some nerve, what with the accents they have down this way. They thought I had an accent? WTF!)


Anywho....As we talk about moving back to Alabama, I find myself wondering more and more if we could really move back and fit in. And....wondering if it's home that's changed, or me who's changed.

A few cousins, a brother, and a baseball......

I think I've mentioned before that the cousins on my mom's side fell into three or four age groups. I had two other cousins close in age to me -- both female -- both with only sisters (no brothers). I had no sisters, only two brothers. Maybe that's why I was the one out of the three of us who ended up with the bruises, sprains, and knocked-out teeth?

And, maybe that's why I was the one who ended up with baseball phobia. To this day I have a fear of baseball and anything associated with it -- balls, bats, even the game itself. If I go to a baseball game, guess who ends up getting smacked in the kisser (or at least can count on a near-miss) with a foul ball? Yes, ma'am. Moi.

I have no trouble tracing that fear back to its root cause. It began at 212, on a spring afternoon when a few of the older (male) cousins and the oldest of my two brothers were playing baseball in the dirt road that ran along one side of 212. As often was the case, no other female cousin close to my age was in Pratt City, so I imagine I was bored and hanging out close, too close, to that dirt road hosting the baseball game.

Apparently, my older male cousins were not precision hitters, because one of the balls found its way to my face. OUCH! Now, if any of my fellow female cousins had been there, I feel sure I would have received tea and sympathy. But....being as how it was only guys, all I got was being read the riot act about how to behave (and react) around baseball games.

That's why I don't do baseball.

....I have another story that explains why I don't do golf. Anybody wanna take a guess what happened there?