Random Kerouac musings on a late August morning

The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, near "home"

It's starting to feel like fall outside, especially in the morning it seems, and so my thoughts often turn to Jack Kerouac.

It's widely thought that October was Jack's favorite month. As he said, in On the Road, "Everybody goes home in October." One of my strongest memories of adolescence is returning home from college for "homecoming weekend," especially my first year (when I was a "freshman," a no longer politically correct term because we've lost our minds in service to tolerance). There was just something about standing around the huge bonfire on the baseball field, eating a hot dog from the concession stand, watching football players you actually had gone to school with, seeing high school friends who similarly left for college but returned for the weekend, and reminiscing about high school life.

But as one of Jack's favorite authors, Thomas Wolfe, titled a novel: You Can't Go Home Again.

One can visit, though, and this faux fall weather seems to be pulling me back toward "home." Honestly, while Maine is my home and I love it here and I love my life, Pennsylvania still feels like "home." I haven't been back in a few years, yet a trip in the near future is doubtful. I want to use Christmas break to see my grandson for the first time, and I'm using fall break for our annual trip to Lowell.

Now that I think of it, going to Lowell feels like going home. Figure that one out if you can. I'm a surrogate for Jack, going "home" in October?

See you in October, my Kerouacian friends.