"You Can Never Go Home Again - But You Can Shop There"

Now I have a greater sense about what John Cusack was talking about in Grosse Pointe Blank when his old home in Grosse Point, MI, has been torn down and replaced with a convenience store. He had the above witicism to share with Alan Arkin, who played his shrink.

When Courtney and I drove to Quebec City on Friday, I thought it might be fun to take a detour along the Ottawa River and go through Rockland, ON, where I spent a week shy of three months of my life back when I was 18 on Katimavik. I navigated my way through dimly (and sadly) familiar streets and found that our old Victorian house had been torn down, and the property sold to developers who had put up cookie-cutter box homes and a low-rise apartment unit. Annie had told me a few years ago that the house had been torn down, but I had to see it to believe it. And Christ was it a sad sight. And to be clear, the only reason why it was sad is because the only good thing about my stay in Rockland regarding Katimavik was the house itself: a giant, six bedroom, three floor Victorian-era house that seemingly had no end. It was beautiful. And now it's gone.

Not to say that I had fond memories of Rockland, ON, but damn: I will never willingly pull my car over and stop in Rockland unless I have a flat. And even then, I would just as soon ride on the rim until I get to the next, equally depressing town. And speaking of the town, a leopard cannot change its spots, which is a polite way of saying that Rockland, ON, once a dump, WILL NEVER, EVER, BE ANYTHING BUT A DUMP. Given one word  to sum up her Rockland experience, Courtney opted for "bleak" or "soul-crushing." I allowed for a tie.

So while I can never go home again to Rockland, ON, or shop there, I can opt for a sad photo of the space where my house used to be, and a passive aggressive rant about a pathetically small-minded and awful town that the government forced me to live in for a while back in '03.