Tue 25 Jan 2011
Journey around my room: Dublin Dr. Pepper*
Posted by PJ under imagination, journey around my room, memories
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Back way back when I was a pre-teen and teen I adored Dr. Pepper. I could not get enough of it and used to guzzle (my mother’s word) the stuff all day long. I have the fillings to prove it, which is why, sometime during high school to save my teeth I swapped my allegiance from Dr. P and other sugary soft drinks to coffee. I say this as if I made the decision all on my own, but my mother and dentist—mostly my mother—made a big deal out of this. Once I stopped guzzling the sugared stuff I mostly stopped having rotten teeth, so I guess it was the right move.
Before I went cold-turkey, I used to plan my trips home from school around my Dr. P addiction. If I caught the bus right outside the school, it left me off on Main Street, about two blocks from my house and not in easy striking distance of a market. But if I walked about 4-5 blocks west from the school to Lincoln Blvd., caught the Lincoln bus to Rose Avenue and walked the 4-5 blocks home from there, I had access to two markets. On the walk up, I’d stop into the little Mom & Pop store on Venice Blvd. for a hit of Dr. P to drink at the bus stop. Then on Rose Avenue, I’d visit Escalera’s market, another Mom & Pop I’d been going to since I was a little girl (when it was still Dumont’s), before completing the one and a half blocks home. I always made sure to buy an extra Dr. P so I could drink it in the evening after dinner.
The thing is, the Dr. Pepper was part of it, maybe the initial motivator, but really I loved those walks. Sometimes I went with another “friend” who lived close to my neighborhood, but mostly I walked alone because I preferred the freedom of my imagination and the luxury to observe, over making inane conversation with a girl I had little in common with and didn’t like that much (and who didn’t care that much for me). So we’d do our best to avoid each other at the end of the school day and go our separate ways. And that was just as it should be. I could take my beloved walk in peace.
*This little guy is not on permanent display in my room—in fact, this little guy has long since gone on to a better life in recycling—but it was there in my room and sparked a memory chain, so I took a picture of it.
This post is really about walking.
