casa de libertad

The last time I remember my life being what one could call settled was in 1985, just before the Navy gave my Dad orders to report to the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk (CV-63). We were in Oakland, at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, where Dad was the World's Greatest BMET, and I spent endless summers playing cars in the dirt, and baseball in the neighbor's yard.

I was ten when we left Oak Knoll. At the time, half of my life had been spent in that little military neighborhood on a hill above the MacArthur Freeway. What followed was a steady stream of new cities, new schools, and a self-imposed detachment from the outside world. By the time I was in high school in San Clemente, I didn't try to make any friends. I spent most of my time immersed in trashy sci-fi and fantasy novels, and trying to learn how to play guitar like Kirk Hammett (yeah, shut up). Oak Knoll was a lifetime away. Like it wasn't even my life.

A few places since have left their impression on me. Crabtree and 209 in River Falls are special. The Armada House is unforgettable (I miss the yard cars and the barrel fires). The Bistro in Minneapolis had it's charms. But those places don't have the same innocent, happy nostalgia of Oak Knoll. They don't have the same, ubiquitous effect on my identity; my personality. I suspect no place ever will, but oddly enough, I feel closer to Oak Knoll these days than I have since we moved away. Maybe it's because I'm playing in the dirt again.