01/02/2026
Lodi
Some more unshared photos from 2025. During a short road trip I made a long stop in a small town named Lodi. In my mind it’s home. My grandparents used to live there and it gave me love for old towns. On their street lived relatives within 5 minutes walking distance. The neighborhood was clustered with homes with large porches and large trees shading uneven sidewalks.
Lots of people would just come to visit my grandparents. I always enjoyed hearing their voices booming, even if from another room. The visitors would be relatives, friends, and neighborhood children just popping over to say hello through a screen door to the kitchen, or sitting in the shaded backyard surrounded by a vegetable garden and small orchard of fruit trees.
Another 5 minute walk lead to a corner ice cream stand (no longer exists), which I would walk to with my grandmother. During summer nights, with the windows open, I could hear train horns in the distance. They were freight trains, they had an alluring sound.
Many of the places I remember are either completely remodeled or just gone. One restaurant, however, still stands and operates. Every time we were in town for a visit, our last morning usually involved breakfast at the old diner. Several relatives would show up and hang out. My grandfather, John, would always show us little tricks with filled water glasses and getting pennies out of the water with a match.
Anyways, Lodi was home.
