s my cousin Joe and I were driving to lunch yesterday afternoon, he pointed out all the stores that had changed. "I don't think that Home Depot was there. The Best Buy is new. That Chili's wasn't there."
In Kalamazoo, like all over the country, the suburbs are spreading. Back when I lived in the southwest corner of Austin, they built a Bed Bath & Beyond over farm country. Our neighbors had goats. If you woke up early enough (I almost never did), you could see wild turkeys in our backyard. One time, a deer jumped off a raised highway and landed on the on-ramp of another. For days we all drove around it. What else can you do?
In my childhood memories, Kalamazoo was never wild and rural. It was all concrete and superstores, and that's why I loved it. The 24-hour Meier, with its pharmacy and food aisles and clothing store and playscapes. The Sizzler, where I gorged on grape soda and all-you-can-eat salad. Kip's Big Boy and those big-ass sundaes. Ironically, I couldn't find such things in Dallas, where we lived in a conservative community that prized its small neighborhood stores. Back then, I didn't know it wasn't cool to eat at Red Lobster or shop at Chess King. My cousins did, and I worshipped them. Soon enough, the kids at school beat their better taste into me, and I saved all my babysitting money to buy Guess jeans and $45 Hawaiian shirts sewn inside out.
Now, when I drive around the sprawl that is suburban Kalamazoo, I don't mourn the countryside that used to be there. I mourn the franchises that didn't make it. "Are you telling me Ponderosa is a bakery now? And what happened to the Howard Johnson's?"
And my cousins make fun of me because I haven't tried all the chain restaurants that dot their streets. "What do you mean, you've never been to Ruby Tuesday's?" they ask. "You've never been to Applebee's either? Uh, have you heard of McDonald's?" So we go to Applebee's, and we go to Ruby Tuesday's, and they tell embarrassing stories about when I was little, and I don't mind anymore, because finally, finally, it's a boon to be the youngest.
"Remember when Sarah thought the Devil Pig was going to eat her?"
"Remember when Sarah ate my cherry-flavored lipgloss?"
"Remember when Sarah drank all the grape soda at the Sizzler and threw up on my pillowcase?"
Wait a minute. Threw up? I don't remember that. But there's no point contending. They have their own versions of history, stretched and bloated by numerous tellings over two decades now. None of us are right, really, and then maybe we all are.
I keep chuckling under my breath at the songs playing in the restaurant. "Little Pink Houses," "Sussudio," "Sweet Child o' Mine." Every one of them reminds me of this town, of Becky's bedroom, of the chain stores that got away.
Later that night, Becky and I are sitting in her jacuzzi on the back porch, watching the fireflies.
"They remind me of Kalamazoo," I tell her.
"They don't have lightning bugs in Texas?"
And they do. But somehow they look different here. There's more, or there's less, or I don't know, it's just something.

written in Kalamazoo, Michigan