I did an awful lot of driving around town this weekend.

On Saturday I managed to get myself totally lost twice while trying to retrace a shortcut I was shown a while ago. I had no luck except that I nearly freaked out when I thought I saw a familiar car in a driveway.

On Sunday I found myself back in Lanesville. I usually make it down there every month or so. I'll drive up to the old house at the top of the hill, hoping to see someone out in the yard.

"Hi, I have home movies of your house being built," I'll say. "Let me and my sister come in and snoop around and I'll make you a copy."

In the 25 years the I've been doing this, I've never seen a single person outside.

I've also never got up the nerve to actually knock on the door, though a friend of mine did just that a few months ago to no avail.

Anyway, yesterday there was something very different about the old neighborhood.

The house that had sat behind my old house for nearly 40 years was gone. Only a foundation and a pile of rubble remained.

I saw some sk8er boiz down by the school and I asked them what had happened to the house.

"It burned a few weeks ago," one of the kidz conceded.

Pretty weird to see just a pile of rubble where my best friend Kelly used to live.