I was two when we left Peterborough. I wasn’t born there, as Mom was bound and determined not to have another child at the hospital where my brother was born and where she miscarried in between us. I have no memories of the place. But I have heard a lot about it over the years. Very little of it flattering. Dad was unhappy there. Mom liked being close to her family. But it was a relatively small town with not much to do (on comparison to the second largest city in the country, where they had moved from). There was one TV network and they talk a lot about how terrible the news program was there. (One broadcast, when Peterborough was suffering from power outages, they referred to “power outrages” the entire broadcast because their teleprompter had no editor.)

But the place has always had a mythical quality about it, to me. Having lived my entire life in Colosse, it was this weird other place that I had, though I couldn’t remember it, lived. That sort of thing touches your imagination when you are ten. In our computer-based baseball league, I put my team in Peterborough. When we determined that we were moving here, having Peterborough as one of the nearest cities was a plus (albeit a miniscule one). I thought I would be making regular trips the same way I did to Redstone when we were in Arapaho, but Royal Crossing, where we live, actually has most of what we need and Peterborough being a relatively not-wealthy town meant it had less amenities than equally sized towns about the same distance away (including the town where I was born), in a different state than Stonebridge and Peterborough.

We have a bit of a problem in the Himmelreich-Truman household at the moment with the baby’s newfound ability and love of throwing clothes around. Combine that with her ability to move herself, and she just loves taking her clothes – placed in stacked openface crates in her room – and throw them around. It became apparent that we needed some chester drawers*. So I’ve been looking at Craigslist ever since. I found some at a used furniture-appliance place out in Peterborough.

I called my mother on the drive to ask the address of the old place. Though my time up there was limited, I did manage to stop by there**. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen the house that they brought me home to. I’d seen pictures before, but there’s never been any cause for us to go to Peterborough and see it. I was taken aback by how large the house was. It looks larger than the house I was raised in, which is interesting given that they didn’t even have kids when they moved there. It was also in a really nice neighborhood, which I was also not expecting. One of the things Mom talks about the most with regard to Peterborough was how absolutely terrible the local school was.

Overall, the trip was not a success. The chester didn’t fit into the Forester with the baby and babyseat. Because I forgot the milk, I couldn’t take my time there. I got some coffee for the drive home and it was awful. I went through nicotine withdrawal and the nice new ecigarette cartridge I opened didn’t work right. The sun was in my eyes on the drive home. My agitation brought out the agitation in Lain, who was crying for much of the drive home. I will probably be going back to Peterborough sans baby because the chester was actually pretty nice.

* – Yes, technically, it is chest of drawers, but when I was young I thought it was chester and I like that better.

** – I also drove by the prison. Peterborough is known for its prison insofar as the town’s name was shorthand for “prison” (“You’ll do a stint in Peterborough if you don’t cooperate!”) on a specific cop drama.