The Bride to Be grew up in Mansfield, which is city-adjacent to where I attended college, and also where Charlie started his career, so I’d spent quite a bit of time there. But that was about 7 years ago, and it’s been a long time since I’d traveled down State Route 30 and gotten off at Trimble to head into Mansfield.
Mansfield had largely been build around manufacturing, and in the Age of Outsourcing, the city declined. Most of my experience with Mansfield has been in the less-than-affluent sections of town, so it was a nice change to travel to the part of town that wasn’t acutely impacted by the exit of the steel mills. The last leg of the trip to my destination felt as though I had turned down a street in Mansfield and ended up in Cleveland Heights, city-adjacent to the town where I grew up. I don’t know how true it is for other people, but I will spend the rest of my life comparing where I am to familiar places I’ve been.
At any rate, it was nice visiting with the Bride to Be and her Maid of Honor, who I’ve known for 10+ years, but really only get to see once or twice a year. At any rate, they are both so like family, I might as well say that they are. There is a picture of the three of us, taken after the shower, floating around someone’s camera, so I’m going to have to be a pill until it’s sent to me. I’m looking forward to putting it on the mantle with my other family pictures.
The Blog of JulZ 