So, a couple of days ago, Tom and I took a ride to Castine to check out a new record store. Took about 2-1/2 hours to drive there, but we have never shied away from a road trip! The store turned out to be tiny but full of wonderful vinyl treasures, turntables, cassettes, posters and a small selection of CDs. We all know I didn't drive that far to check out CDs, don't we? But the purpose of this post is not to go into depth about my latest record shopping trip, but about the feelings this particular trip stirred up within me.

Castine, Maine is one of the oldest towns in New England, and I believe one of the prettiest. It also happens to be right next to the town where I grew up, so I suppose one could say that I am familiar with this area. Many memories from my teens, some of which I may not share due to adult themes! Then again, I just might. Stay tuned. And, I should mention, prior to this trip, I hadn't set foot in Castine for about 10 years if I had to guess.

Before we hit the town line, we passed a house where a good high school friend of mine used to live. I wasn't thinking about that, only of the record store, so it hit me like a jump scare in a horror movie! We used to hang out a lot with our group of friends, but I never once had the nerve to tell him about the secret torch I carried for him, that burned throughout those school years. My self esteem tank was running nearly on empty in those days, so I just assumed that he didn't like me "like that". Junior year, I was shocked and thrilled when he called to ask me to the prom, then instantly shattered when I realized I had to turn him down due to a trip my mother (who was living in CT at the time) had arranged for my sister and I to take with her. I begged her to let me skip the trip to go to my prom with this guy, but she was quite unmoved and I had to go on the trip. It was a nice trip, mind you, to visit my grandfather in North Carolina, but my teenage heart was definitely beating elsewhere. As we passed the house, I fought the tears as I reminisced about times we hung out with our group of pals. My reaction really caught me off guard, but I hid it well from Tom so as not to ruin our day.

Crossed into Castine, and it quickly became a town-sized trunk of memories, all hitting me simultaneously, even a bit overwhelmingly at times. Memories of the places I worked in Castine, or the places where my friends and I partied or the couple of guys from Maine Maritime Academy I dated (not at the same time! How dare you?) , and all the way back to the swimming lessons I took at the beach there when I was a kid. Uh oh, I feel stories coming on! But first, another photo:

This is the view from Main Street. You can see straight down to the town dock. At the street lamp I front of the white van, if you take a left turn, there are the buildings where Petty's Pizza and the Hardware store my friends' parents owned used to be. They seem to be vacant at the moment. The hardware store was a Saturday job, as my friends' parents (Actually, Bob who took us to the Duran Duran concert) would go away each weekend. We were 3 hormonal teenage girls and did I mention that Maine Maritime Academy is in Castine? That's right, folks, the town was crawling with college aged men and sometimes men wander into....yep, hardware stores! They also rented videos there, and since this was pre-internet, they had to rent their porno movies from us, which we found hilarious! When we weren't working, we would cruise the not-so-mean streets in my friend's jeep to check out any midshipmen ("Middies" we called them)who might be out walking--I believe we nicknamed the street Middie Lane, but we only looked, too chicken to make any moves! I was set up with a cute, silent type football player and dated him very briefly. No good Petty's Pizza stories, just waitressed there for a Summer.

Here's the town dock, and the Maine Maritime Academy training ship. The dock was the site of many peach schnapps-fueled (or beer or wine coolers, whatever we could get our underage hands on) escapades. I won't elaborate on them here, for though they are funny, they are also embarrassing!

Finally, Castine was where I met Boyd, the first guy I thought I was in love with, but at 16, do we really know what that means yet? He was a midshipmen I met at one of their dances. I was being a wallflower while my friend and her boyfriend danced, and he walked right up to me and asked me why I was sitting there all by myself. Though I was shy, I felt at ease with him and we found we were both big U2 fans. We ended up dating for awhile, and I fell deeper for him all the time, so elated to see him or receive his phone calls. But, he broke my 16-year old heart when I discovered he was seeing a girl from Castine behind my back, and I broke it off. Of course, I blamed myself for his cheating ways because I was young and stupid, and was convinced that he was my last chance at love! So dramatic I was!

So, basically, Castine is a time capsule of sorts for my teens, good memories, but also the site of my first major heartbreak. This one little town holds so much of my personal history, which I hadn't really thought about until returning there for a simple record shopping trip.