Something about Home

The town of Lodi, New Jersey has been my home for the entirety of my life. I can still remember not being allowed to drive my bike past the stop sign at the end of the street or playing basketball on the street with my friends till it got too dark, then still playing a while more till we literally could not see the ball. I used to have a trampoline in the backyard that hosted my friends and we would play games like kill the man with ball and handball. Growing up I was lucky enough to have my best friends PJ Potter and Vincent Pinghera live just three and five blocks away. We would constantly switch off at each other's houses playing videos games, basketball, riding our bikes, anything we could do that occupied us believe me we did it. I grew up on a little street called 2 Lorelei Ter. It was situated on a dead end so there was always little traffic. It was the worst when it would snow though, plows would never come down the off the beaten path street and my dad would end of attempting to clear it with his snow blower. I still remember pulling out the football and tossing it around with my dad in the snow. Making diving catches in the middle of street is something I will remember forever, I always wanted to be a football player playing in a snow game. The way they would slide after diving or getting tackled looked like an insane amount of fun. PJ, Vinnie, and I would always go to avenue E deli and as weird as it sounds I still can remember what everyone purchased each time. Kind of crazy to look back riding around with our bikes on the streets of Lodi and something about that makes driving around Lodi now in my car a little more satisfying. I was lucky enough to have both of best friends from the young age of four. Really crazy to think about it, but we are still best friends to this day. Whenever I go home we always link up and just hang out. We all go to colleges pretty far away from each other so we rarely see each other outside at school, but no matter how long we spend apart we always come back together like nothing changed. Sure, those avenue E deli runs may have turned into a quick drive to Wawa, but it is something about the inseparable bond we have that makes home home. Knowing that I am going to go back to not only my family, but literally friends that I consider brothers. I still remember waking up twenty minutes before high school and rushing to pick up Vinnie, PJ, my girlfriend and just running into first period as the bell rang. The struggle to find the spot amongst the extremely crowded streets near my parking lot less school. I remember going to baseball practice with them, tossing the ball around and screwing around. I guess I associate home with a much simpler time. Not worrying about internships or employment law tests, but just hanging with friends, how we're going to get a couple four lokos. High school sports and who got with the hottest chicks. Before I got my liscense me and my friends would walk home everyday. It was brutal and we hated it, and of course my house was the last one on the walk. I would always persuade everyone to come over and hang out so I did not have to walk that final couple blocks solo. These are couple things I hold close to my heart when I think about home and I wish I could relive on a daily basis. I will never forget these things.