This is a piece in a series about the town I grew up in, Aston Township. You can catch the first part here.
Aston, PA – Reunion
The other day, I received a friend request on Facebook from an account uncreatively adorned with my high school’s name awkwardly crammed into the standard name field. Curious, I investigated further to find that, indeed, it was a former classmate attempting to invite me to a 5-year reunion. 5 years. Wow.
I scrolled through the list of friends this account had managed to accumulate, my mouth agape at the names I’d forgotten all about. “How amazing the brain is,” I thought out loud. Seeing these faces triggered memories that hadn’t been roused in what already felt like a decade.
Like Zac’s Hamburgers or Linvilla Orchard, these people are Aston. Like the banks of the Chester Creek and the creaking foundation pieces that hold up the houses that cling to the hills of Aston Mills, they are grey and familiar. Though the circumstances have changed, their faces are almost exactly as I remember them – as eerily similar as the time I came before.
When I went to Pittsburgh, I tried to forget every face I’d known before. I guess, like the streets of the town I never bothered to learn the names of, powerful memories made me remember what I didn’t want to.
And even though I never knew my classmates and even though I only liked a few, I’m glad that I remember them. We’ve all come a long, long way, and, well, I respect that.
