Won't take nothin' but a memory

I'm not one to live in the past. Heck, I don't even visit very often.

But sometimes you find yourself in the neighborhood ... and you just have to stop and pay your respects.

Like when Kate was driving through a sketchy part of Jackson and realized she was near the cemetery and her mom's grave. Getting out of the car felt too raw and jagged, so she just slowed down ... and maybe let a butterfly of a thought rest on her mind.

I took a little backwards trip recently while passing University Hospital in Jackson. That particular trip was not a butterfly memory at all, but a big, fat, pain-filled hornet. Post traumatic stress is a real thing. I had to pull over and open the car door because I thought, "Seriously? I am going to vomit."

I don't wanna dwell there. Not in that past. Forever on the bathroom floor with a cold rag on my forehead.

But the richness of old neighborhood memories -- bike riding, short cutting through friend yards, the Blue Bees club (a secret artistic society for girls) -- those are places you might want to go back to occasionally.

Places like Hattiesburg High School, where there are lots more bars and fences now -- but the fighting Tiger mascot is still attached to the bricks.

Or the now-filled-in Jaycee pool, where they would fish you out with a big hook during a terrifying swimming lesson.

Or the Teen Center, which could also be terrifying.

Back to the days of I C H (Independent Chicks of Hattiesburg) and the Debutante Association.

Be forewarned: visiting the past in person doesn't look a lot like the memory. It's all tiny now, and campy and drab, really.

But the mind can re-play it as rich and colorful and oh-so-vivid. Just like it used to be.

300 Dixie Avenue today

"The House that Built Me"

Tricia and Forrest at an ICH dance: Circa Seventh Grade

Scott and Kent senior year:

to make you sing Kenny Chesney's "I Wanna Go Back"