Java Junction (formerly Mitches Java & Jazz)

When Mike and Jenn moved up to Newhall from the valley, we used to come up here a lot. It was started by a former NBA player, but since then has changed hands a couple of times. I'm just glad that, after all I've seen displaced, that it's still here.

I drove by where Record Trader used to be, just north of Sherman Way on Reseda, but that's gone now too. After that I drove back to Panorama City and took some pictures of the old house and of Kaiser, too. I also went by Sepulveda, my Junior High, and Monroe, my High School, before driving up here.

Why did I do this? What did I gain?

I hope I put some of the nostalgia to rest. I'm trying to learn to live more in the moment, and doing this let me live, for a day, in the past. I did it until I got bored. My hope is that no man lives more in the present than one who just left his past behind. That's what I'm trying to do: write it down, box it up, make it clear. Will I ever need to see these places again? The area around the Americana, for example, has gone through so many different iterations that I don't really even remember which iteration I am nostalgic for. Almost everything about my boyhood home has been altered--some of it for the better. All the schools I went to, and all the places I worked, are so drastically changed that I can hardly recognize them. Most of my favorite places are gone. The Winetka drive in, where I lost my virginity, is now a parking lot for a walk-in movie theater. I even drove down an old girlfriend's street and couldn't remember which house she used to live in. The whole experience was almost like trying to recognize a family member by the shape of their skull.

So what am I left with? The realization that there's more of my past inside me than there is here, that I am the primary source of my memories. Also, that life is for living.