I can be horribly nostalgic, especially this time of year. There’s something about the way the sunlight becomes golden as it slants through the trees in the late afternoon, the nights become ever so slightly cooler and crisper, and fall reds and yellows become sprinkled through the summer greens of the forest. Yes, there’s something about the late summer that brings back all the other late summers of my life and, for better or worse, parades them past my mind’s eye for scrutiny and evaluation.
I’m the kind of guy who feels an irresistible urge to drive past places I’ve lived to check up on them, to see what the new owners have done with the place. Quite frequently, I’ll report back to my wife.
“You know that apple tree we planted in the front? They took it out. It looks like they’re going to try to put in a driveway so they can have off-street parking. Wouldn’t they rather have fresh apples every fall?”
It’s almost always depressing news. The apple tree’s gone. The breezeway we loved, gone. My wife’s response is always the same, “You’ve got to stop doing that, you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”
She’s right, of course. The sad thing is, I can’t stop checking them out. It’s more than just seeing what has or hasn’t been done to the old house, it’s about seeing the neighborhood and remembering my life in that place and time. It’s about sorting through those memories and placing them more permanently in the timeline of my life. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I recently went to visit my parents. They live in an assisted living apartment that is just a few blocks from the house I grew up in. They lived in that house for 50 years before moving to their apartment. Of course I go and check out the old neighborhood whenever I go to visit them.
The first few times driving by the old house were unsettling. I wanted to pull into the driveway, park my car, and run into the house, expecting to see my parents and maybe a sibling or two still hanging about. It was all I could do to keep driving past. As I drove, I kept seeing reminders of my life in that neighborhood.
There was the corner where some friends and siblings had nailed a two story structure made of scrap lumber to a telephone pole and called it a fort. There was a picture in the paper of six or seven of us crowded into it and looking like we were having the time of our lives. The picture had recently resurfaced on social media and my brother and I couldn’t even identify all of our friends. These were kids that, for many years, we had hung out with every day. Memory can be tricky.
There was the field where, all summer, we played pickup baseball. The basepaths were well worn, the pitcher’s mound was more of a depression than a mound, and the home-run fence consisted of a length of wire garden fencing that covered about a third of the intended space and that we jokingly referred to as the Green Monster. The field was simple but it served its purpose well.
Noticing all the old haunts in the neighborhood after my parents sold their house was a bit of a rude awakening. The telephone pole that the fort had been nailed to was down, the cables now buried under ground. The old ballfield was grown over in high grass and the Green Monster had been taken down. It was like we had never been there at all. As I drove home from that visit, I couldn’t help but feel blue. It was like my childhood had been dismantled, bit by bit.
On my most recent visit, I told myself I wouldn’t even drive through the neighborhood. I was there to visit my parents, not revisit my past. After lunch with my parents, I planned to go back to my motel room, check in, shower, and maybe take a little nap before going to eat dinner with them. I checked the time. 2 p.m. I still had an hour before I could check in. It couldn’t hurt, could it? Just one little drive by the old house? I really couldn’t help myself, I am who I am.
This time through was a little different. My parents’ old house, my childhood home, looked more lived in. There were bikes plopped down by the driveway and a small slide/swing/climbing wall combination in the backyard. Driving on, I noticed that the old ballfield had been mowed and on the corner where our fort once stood was a lemonade stand, attended by two adorable children who yelled at me about my need for a cool, delicious drink. Of course I stopped and purchased one. As I drove out of the old neighborhood, I realized that it had moved on, it was living the life it was supposed to live. Maybe I should, too.
This time, as I drove home from my visit, I thought about how fortunate my parents were to live in a place where they were well cared for and were still able to visit with family and friends from the old neighborhood as well as all their new neighbors at their new home. Their windows looked out on the same views of the St. Mary’s river as our old house and that made them happy. I should be so lucky.
And why not? I was heading home to a beautiful part of the world, home to a cute little house with a deck in the canopy of the surrounding trees. Trees that undoubtedly had a few leaves that were beginning to turn red. Trees that, when I got home, would be filtering the golden light of late summer onto my little deck.
I was also heading home to a little kitchen I loved. I was already thinking about making dinner. Why not make one of the most nostalgic dishes I could think of, spaghetti and meatballs. My recipe varies a little from the one I grew up with. The substitution of Italian sausage for the ground beef of my mom’s spaghetti gives it a little more zip. I hope you like it.
Spaghetti and Sausage Meatballs
Meatballs
1 lb. ground italian sausage
1 small onion, grated
1 T. fresh garlic, minced
2 T. chopped fresh parsley
1 large egg, beaten
2 T. milk
.25 C. fine breadcrumbs
.25 t. dried thyme
.25 t. smoked paprika
Pinch nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
Panko breadcrumbs to coat meatballs
Light olive oil for frying meatballs
Combine the ground sausage, onion, garlic, parsley, egg, milk, fine breadcrumbs, spices, salt and pepper in a large bowl and mix well. Cover and chill for 20 minutes. Remove from the refrigerator and shape into 1 ½ inch balls. Roll in panko breadcrumbs and set aside. Cover the bottom of a large heavy skillet with olive oil and heat on medium high. Brown meatballs on all sides in the oil. Remove and set aside.
Sauce
1 T. light olive oil
1 medium onion, small dice
1 T. fresh garlic, minced
2 t. fennel seeds
1 t. dried oregano leaves
3 T. dry red wine
3 T. chicken stock
24 oz. jar quality marinara sauce
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
Heat olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed sauce pan or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Saute onion for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add garlic and saute for another two minutes, stirring. Add fennel seeds and oregano and cook for another minute, stirring. -Add red wine and cook for another two minutes then add chicken stock and cook for another minute.
Add the marinara and crushed tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Add the meatballs and reduce heat to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally to keep from burning, for 30 minutes to an hour.
The longer you simmer, the more you develop deep, rich flavors.
Cook spaghetti (or your favorite pasta) according to manufacturer’s instructions and top with sauce and meatballs as well as plenty of grated parmesan cheese.