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A Brief History of Time

Or, How Ten Years Can Feel Like a Lifetime

Sometimes I miss my old hometown. When I come back to visit it seems so quiet and dark and spooky in a Stephen King kind of way...

Just the thought of Hollidaysburg brings up such a storm of thoughts and feelings - the biggest mistakes of my life were made in Hollidaysburg (all of them male)... the most intense moments of anguish as well as moments of sheer joy (again - male)... the kind of joy you can only feel when you're 17 and it's friday night and you have a car and $50 and a half dozen friends and a fresh package of Marlboro's from Anne's Grocery ($1.25) and nowhere to be and nothing to do but live - fearless and free... Of course Hollidaysburg didn't have the most thriving nightlife so my formative friday nights were often so full of absolute boredom that trouble simply HAD to be made just to keep us from going out of our minds. Necessity being the mother of invention deemed that we come up with some utterly bizarre ways to pass the time... things we still don't dare tell our folks. Things we'd certainly never tell our children. Who knew a hotel room at the Econo Lodge could be so fun? Or a campfire at the sandbanks? Or skinny dipping at the country club? Or just sitting up on the big hill in Altoona listening to the flag flap-flap-flap in the wind, smoking and talking about everything and nothing - honing our dreams - certain we would change the world, confident that we knew what it was all about... stealing a page from Jim Morrison, we could have planned a murder or started a religion.

Now here it is 10 years later and I'm pushing 30 (thirty!!!) and a package of cigarettes costs $5.39 since I switched to those fancy pants English imports because I long ago outgrew Marlboro's. And I have a career... the evil six letter word... And there's this little person running around who keeps calling me "mommy" though I'm quite certain there's been some mistake because the idea that I've been entrusted with the task of raising another human being is just... well... utterly terrifying.

I guess that life is a constantly evolving adventure and as the echoes of "Hey Joni don't bogart that pipe" fade into nostalgic oblivion - to be replaced by cries of "Mommy I accidentally spilled paint on the cat"... I sit back and reflect on my time in Hollidaysburg and realize that, for all the heartache and misery of my time there, the history, beauty, and mystery of Hollidaysburg will always be with me and I for one am glad to have lived there.

There are a lot of people I would like to reconnect with from back there... if you are any of the following people, please email me: Zeke Woods, Bryan Harker, Karen Miller

Other Places to go:

My Portland Music + Culture Website
My Movie
Me and My Old Man's Company Site

I can be reached at:
Joni queenie@pomn.com