a tribute to the old Kerman by Mel King

....i usually take a drive thru town and get nostalgic for the place i love now and hated then....seriously tho...how many of y'all get to drive your little bro to school on a grey morning when the almond trees are in full bloom lookin like snow....the moss on the old farm houses is neon green...and u can see the snow on the huge mountains miles away that make this the central valley of californaiyae?....anyways....my drive doesnt take very long, i start out by passing a "mural" (really a billboard put up at the edge of the grapevines as u enter town) that says "Historic Kerman" over it and shows a boat on the San Joaquin river that has now been slowed to a trickle because of damming.....right after that is the back of Auto Zone and save mart (blank walls screaming for a REAL (i.e timely, community oriented, thought provoking etc) mural))......and the newly installed, suburban-Tope-colored Perkos Cafe and something i believe called Video Zone that must be our new corporately owned video store since the locally owned video store that had been around forever went out of business a few years ago....then comes Taco Bell, where a sign says they are "now hiring friendly people".....ah yes, kerman...where the 98Cent store is having a clearance sale, and you can get your hair cut at a place called "good haircuts".....as i finish my drive and round the corner where there used to be an old horse we liked to pet over the fence...I see its now called Quail Run (ive never seen a quail here in my life...) and there are track homes where the horse and grapevines used to be......