Quincy

If someone asked me to draw a map of the United States when I was five years-old, I might have only created five dots within the country's border, representing the cities that I knew. There would have been a big circle for Pittsburgh - the center of the universe.  Two more for Disney World in Florida and its predecessor in California. There would have been a big star for New York City (at an early age I had big dreams to make it to Broadway.) And I would have finished my map with a big circle in the middle - Quincy, Illinois. It's size and stature in my young mind were just as big as the bustling island of Manhattan. Growing up, Quincy and the people that inhabited it were larger than life.

The oak tree outside of my grandparent's house reached the sky. And the cookie tray inside their house had more rows of sweet treats than could fit in my tubby belly.

The pool was like an ocean and swimming all the way across it was unheard of. 

I got to watch a world class golfer putt on a pristine green, and he would give me and his other adoring fans big hugs when he was through. 

  

All it took was walking up the plank and saying the magic words, 'F 59' for a Chipwich to appear in the window.

In Quincy, I was allowed to eat two pieces of zucchini bread and a radio roll from Underbrink's Bakery for breakfast

Nowhere else in the world were there Maid Rites. Quincy is home to the best sandwich shop ever.  

There were big fish that lived in these lagoons. We would catch a breakfast's worth of them with Grandpa and Grandma would fry them up. 

There were more swings in more parks than you could possibly imagine. 

Everyone always dressed up for dinner. 

There was tons of sand - to play in, bury each other under, and build castles with.

  

And there was a restaurant that baked their bread in terracotta flower pots. Too cool.  

This past weekend, my extended family met in this epic location for a reunion. Most of hadn't been back for ten years. And most of us found ourselves saying, 'it seems smaller than we remember.'

Maybe it was because our own maps were now filled with the brighter lights and bigger cities of our travels. Maybe it was because our adult limbs got us to the center of Spring Lake a little faster. Maybe it was because eating a Strip Tenderloin and a Maid Rite didn't seem like a feat anymore. Mostly though, it was because the two people who made Quincy so special, so storied, and so sweet weren't there this time around. Without Grandma and Grandpa, Forrest Avenue wasn't as warm and welcoming; the locker room and dining room of Spring Lake were quieter; the picnic didn't have the same kind of fried chicken and there were no Hello Dollies; the lap lanes didn't have their graceful side stroke swimmer; and the 19th hole was missing its favorite golfer.

But in my grandparents' stead, making Quincy and Spring Lake as lively as ever, were more than 35 of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. And as an adult, I got to see the magic of this place light up the eyes of my cousin's children as they experienced everything for the first time.

The legends and lore of Quincy will always live in my heart, and I can't wait to pass the stories and their setting on to my children someday. However, as it was this time around, it will continue to be difficult to replicate the hero role. There was no one like Grandma and Grandpa.

Lo.