Last weekend, Chris and I took our first vacation together. We flew down to Palm Beach Gardens, FL, where I grew up. My high school class was holding its 10-year reunion, so I wanted to see some familiar faces as well as visit the area. Overall the trip was great!

First, we went to one of the reunion events, a happy hour at Noche, which I don’t remember, but which is near Carmine’s, which I do. I caught up with friends I hadn’t spoken to in 10 years, friends with whom I’d visited a few times during college, and classmates whom I barely remembered but were friendly and happy to be there, as was I. True to Florida summer weather, we had our first night of some fierce evening thunderstorms that would revisit us daily at approximately the same hour. But I mostly forgot about the weather as I slowly took in how much some people had changed, and I wondered whether I had changed as much too.

Since the appetizers at happy hour still left us hungry, Chris and I went for a late dinner with some of my old classmates. We went to nearby Panama Hattie’s, a local seafood restaurant that for me embodies the memory of my hometown: it’s on the intracoastal, it has seafood and live music, the decor has a tropical theme, the atmosphere is casual and relaxed. And how better to celebrate being home than eating two lobsters!

Aside from a day the Rapids Water Park, we spent most of our time at the beach. Chris is shy and doesn’t like having pictures of himself, so these are mostly me!

We did walk around downtown West Palm Beach a bit. It made me sad, actually – Clematis Street is still beautiful, but so quiet, as if forgotten. Where had all the people gone?

Well, we found them, at least a lot of them: Nearby is a new (new to me) shopping mecca, CityPlace (or something like that). It’s very nice, with manicured foliage, good lighting, and chic restaurant-bar places. But it’s entirely made of chains you could find anywhere else in the country. It’s like one of those ACME packages on old cartoons: if you need a shopping mall, you get a little box labeled “ACME Shopping Mall,” you press a button to deploy it, and up pops an unfolding flourishing shopping mall, exactly like every other ACME package.

Chris has a couple theories about the deterioration of Main Street USA, and I have to agree with him insofar as these national retail chains are simply giving the public what they want. I’m saddened by the lack of patronage that leaves abandoned the once-lively Clematis Street of my memory, the destination of local 20-somethings it used to be.

In my last 10 or so years living in the Northeast, I have often longed for south Florida, for the elements of my hometown that most starkly contrasted with my sometimes dark and drab environment. I longed for the blue ocean, the lush green manicured lawns and flower beds, the flaming orange of Spanish barrel tiled roofs, the festive bright pastel coral and mint green of newly constructed buildings everywhere. How poignant it is that all the newness and manufacturedness that I missed while in the Northeast has actually grown to a monstrosity while I was away, blazing so brightly, slowly bleaching out original unique establishments, leaving my hometown bereft of any character it can call its own.

And now I’ve returned to Philadelphia, its rich history painstakingly preserved, ever a study in creative urban renewal, everywhere in proximity to something legendary, be it a cheesesteak joint or a giant mural or an avant-garde sculpture or a tree with thousands of pieces of old gum stuck on its trunk. Although I chose to come to Penn because I wanted to live in Philly, I have a new-found appreciation for this place. It is like no other.