Do you know the way, to San Jose?

No, no, no. This has nothing to do with Dionne Warwick, or Frankie...

Or does it?

My mother left me at Cheri's doorstep as she and my brother went on to our new house to unpack. It was time for me to bid farewell to my only real "pal" from our old neighborhood. We were moving. I had an hour to do so. I was only 6. What did "moving" mean? Where was I moving? What was moving?

Cheri wasn't home. My only friend, for the last two years, wasn't home when I came to say goodbye.

Instead, I sat on her living room couch waiting. With her mother. While she cleaned the house. I was devastated, my mother told me to say goodbye, and I couldn't. She wasn't there.

I waited an hour. Sitting, waiting, thumbing around my friends living room, downstairs from the room I played in so many times. Where I played with plastic horses, plastic familes in big plastic houses, with plastic furniture.

Finally, my mother returned, and I had to leave. No goodbye. Just a "my mom's here, I gotta go."

I shoulda known, sure we "penpal-ed" for a few years, but that all eventually came to an end.

We did see each other one time after my move, she came to my home while her parents were in town.

When it came time for her to leave, it was my mothers job to drive her to the hotel near the airport. My mother had no idea how to get to the airport. We drove out of the way, all over town, for hours, trying to get to the airport.

Now, everytime I drive down Sunset Blvd - that oughtta tell ya how far out of the way we went - in Hollywood, I always think of that day we spent in the back of the 76 Monte Carlo, saying goodbye.

Bubble Gum Ice Cream

Do you remember your first trip to 31 Flavors? I do. We had just moved into our new house, in a new neighborhood and had ventured to the shopping center across the interstate.

Gemco....remember that? And Safeway. A few other shops that I don't recall, and then, there on the end of the strip sat the marvelous 31 Flavors.

What did I get, every single time? Bubble Gum Icecream. No mint chip, no chocolate chip, no sorbet, no rocky road. Only that horrible, at-first-it's-white-then-it's-a-horrible-shade-of-a-blue-mess bubblegum ice cream.

You never knew just how many balls you'd find in there. Maybe three....maybe nine. I saved every last one till I was done with my ice cream.

I'd suck on'em, then spit them to the side of my dish and chew them later.

God I loved those cold, hard, balls of ick.