Thinking about the house where I grew up makes me long to see it, so I do. Not by car, by mouse. Seated at my computer, I use an online map to take a simulated drive through my old neighborhood in northwest Detroit.

I click on the white arrow in the middle of Wormer Street and pass the houses where the Reeds, Frasers and Barrys used to live. When I spot the three-bedroom brick bungalow where I was raised, I want to run through the front door and say, Mah-ahm, I’m home. Kick off my shoes and walk barefoot through green shag carpeting. See my reflection in the gold-flecked mirror tiles on the living room wall. And when I swing open my bedroom door, find the poster of Scott Baio still taped above my bed.

When I take a second curbside look at my home, I notice what’s missing. The elm tree. I loved its long, straight trunk, the symmetry of its branches—its too good to be true shape. The kind of tree every kid draws using one brown crayon, one green. They say by 1970, an estimated 77 million trees were lost to Dutch elm disease. I hadn’t mourned one until I saw this photograph.

What has been added to the picture is equally alarming. A woman in pink pants sits on the steps of my front porch, talking on a cell phone. I spent many hours talking in that same place. The telephone cord wouldn’t reach that far, but I didn’t mind. I preferred to chat with my friends in person.

That woman is sitting at the endpoint of a game of Mother May I? Perched in the spot where I used to watch Bob Cowley back his Awrey’s truck into the driveway next door. Some days he would send me home with an armful of bread, Cinnamon Swirls or cheese Danish.

The lady in pink is parked in the worn pathway traveled by my Uncle Joe, grandparents, and scores of neighbors who became family. They gathered to share stories and jokes and to find relief from their kids and spouses.

The neck of the hour glass must have been much thinner back then. There was plenty of time for grownups to share a drink or a cigarette, carry on about nothing and play Michigan rummy long after the streetlights came on. I remember falling asleep to the sounds of laughter, shuffling cards, and the ring of a copper penny ante. Sometimes when it’s quiet at night, I hear this happy echo.