The Funeral Home
A couple of weeks ago, Jeff and I went on a bike ride from his place in Rochester Hills toward Pontiac on the Clinton River Trail. The trail is an abandoned railroad track (Our section of track here in Pontiac is unfortunately still in use.). As we crossed Auburn Road in Auburn Hills, I realized that we were right across the street from the Davis (apparently now Pixley) Funeral Home. I know it sounds strange, but I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. My grandparents lived in the apartment upstairs for most of the 80s.
I know that I must’ve driven past it sometime in the past twenty years, but I’ve definitely never stopped. I wanted to get a closer look and reminisce for a bit, so we rode up.
It doesn’t look like the building has done anything but rot since the last time I was there. The windows to the apartment upstairs were covered over, and I wasn’t about to risk the stairway to take a peek in the door.
Walking around the back to the pool area was the topper though. They didn’t even bother to take out the coping around the edges. It was just filled in and forgotten. Our family has a lot of summer birthdays, and many of them were spent here at the pool. Even though I grew up on a lake, swimming at Grandma’s was always a special treat. (Lakes don’t come equipped with diving boards!) It was totally surreal to see the pool this way. It seems so much smaller than when I was a kid.
Being there brought back a lot of memories. Grandpa, Mark and I used to watch the trains go by on the tracks that have long been abandoned and since reclaimed as a bike path. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish that my grandparents still lived in an apartment above a funeral home. (They now have a much nicer place next to a cemetery!) It’s just a bummer to see a place that was a big part of my childhood so neglected.
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