Heather Christena Schmidt

We were driving around today, killing time and enjoying the seat warmers in our rental car, when all of a sudden I realized that we were in my hometown.

The town I grew up in.

Blast from the past, right? ERR. Wrong. Blast of puke from my mouth.

Let me back track. Saturday we embarked on a cross-country trek to the Chicagoland area, for the Thanksgiving holiday and to visit family and friends. Also to pork down enough good food to last us until our next time out here (hopefully that one will be permanent, though that’s another story…).

And I guess we came out to embark on some nostalgia. Like usual.

So I grew up in a town now referred to as Homer Glen. I say “now referred to” because at the time it was just called Homer Township, which was an unincorporated area just outside the city of Lockport. If you know anything about the famous Joliet prison, Lockport is just across the bridge from that. And Homer Township just up the street from there. Now it’s a town, called Homer Glen. Apparently Homer alone (named after the founders HORSE) wasn’t good enough for them. Whatever.

Because I lived in a township, I was bussed over to Lockport for high school. They still don’t have a Homer High or anything like that, though that will likely come one day as the area grows. Or not. Who knows.

So I went to Lockport Township High School. All four years.

Let me just pause there and say: if you came to this blog post by Googling “Lockport Township High School blows big fat monkey balls, no wait monkey balls are too good for LTHS that’s how bad LTHS is…” … well, I agree with you. My experience there was – shall we say – lacking. But really, whose high school experience is actually all that great in the end? There’s always something horrible about it, even if you’re the captain of the football team (or whatever the position is everyone envies).

Moving along.

We were driving around and enjoying the seat warmers and I realized we were in our hometown, and I asked my father just what we were doing. He said hitting up some nostalgia, a blast from the past. Then I started to gag (because if my husband were here, I would be saved from this blast from the past nonsense, but alas my husband doesn’t get in until tomorrow night). Anyway, I started to gag because there is absolutely nothing more nauseating than sitting in the car with my father when he starts on one of these nostalgia tours. At first it’s cute. Five hours later you’re car sick and very seriously annoyed.

He drove past our old house, which is cool to see. Though it isn’t our house anymore so really who cares?

We drove past my grade school.

My father regaled stories about shooting a 75 on this golf course, and eating dinner at that diner that still exists.

Then we started towards Lockport and I really started to feel nauseous because going to Lockport means one thing and one thing only:

A visit to good ol’ LTHS.

We started down the road towards the high school and my father said enthusiastically “does anyone want to visit LTHS?!” I thought he was kidding. I prayed he was kidding. I bargained my soul to the devil to make a visit to LTHS not happen.

A visit to LTHS – for me – is not all cutesy like in the movies. We don’t go in and wander through the halls, remembering my first kiss. Seeing trophies I won in the trophy case. Recognizing a teacher and chatting about how wonderful my life is.

Nope. A visit to LTHS would be taking a look at the woods where my boyfriend and I used to make out and smoke cigarettes. It would be remembering all the times my dad thought I was too dumb to pass a class, so put me in a remedial one in spite of my test scores. It would be being recognized by no one but the security cop that caught me with weed in my locker freshman year. Which doesn’t matter anyway, because my life is nothing to brag much about now anyway. I pretty much do all the same shit I did in high school, that being contribute very little and wear lounge clothes every single day. Wait, in high school I actually had a paying job, which is more than I can say for myself now.

As we pulled in I couldn’t take it anymore and very seriously thought I was going to vomit. My dad kept stopping the car, saying “take a picture here!” and going on and on about all the stories from my time in high school. Or from him covering football games there when he worked for the paper. And on and on he went until finally I just screamed for us to leave before I vomited all over the car and my precious seat warmer.

School was in. I am sure people heard. The lunch ladies were leaving for the day, and may have given me dirty looks as I sat screaming in the car.

I have no shame, though. A girl can only handle so much.

Do you go on nostalgia tours every time you go home, faithful blog followers? Or are you like me: preferring to keep your past blasted back as far back as is humanly possible?