I've said before how you can really get to know someone by visiting them at home -- not just going to her apartment or house or room, but to her home (or homes) where Mom and Dad and the cats are. You see how she talks with them, how she interacts with them, how she acts with them and it's not just the way she acts around you. You see the pictures and the decorations in her room and the painted basement walls and the old paintings from kindergarten. You hear some inside family jokes and get let in on some family secrets and traditions. You walk the tree-lined streets of her neighborhood and see her best friend's old house and the house where her mom grew up.

You hear more stories about childhood games and sisterly jokes all inspired by a street you turn down or a building you pass. You drive over the mountain to mom's house and see her old high school and the house where the brother and sister lived whom she picked up every morning on the way to school. You see the football stadium and the railroad tracks with the new road and the llama on the door telling you to go to the side door where Moom waits inside.

And in all that, something new is revealed to you. Another side of her, another look into what makes her her. Another reason to love her.

I think most people look down on their hometowns. Everyone complains at some point during her adolescents that she lives in a dead town, a boring place where "nothing exciting ever happens." Some people believe that until they die, moving out at the first opportunity. Others come to appreciate their hometowns for what they are, despite their shortcomings. I tend to see at least a little bit of charm in nearly everywhere I go. In Johnstown I see it in the wide, tree-lined avenues of Westmont and the narrow alleys lined with driveways and garages. I see it at the Inclined Plane, looking down over the city at the flood plain and the river and the factories near the railroad tracks. I wonder if Springsteen ever saw this view or if he just came up with, "I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company" without picturing the lumberyards of this blue-collar town. I think part of the charm -- you know, first impressions lasting and all -- was seeing it on the first real day of fall. At least, the first autumn day I've experienced this year. The air was cool and clear, the sky a little cloudy, and I wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt outside for the first time in months. To me, looking down from the hilltop at the city, the view before me bore a nostalgaic tint of some kind to it, making me feel like it was some other time, not 2001. It felt like a simpler, safer time than the world I woke up to Wednesday morning.

Leaving home at 8 a.m., I made it southwest through New Jersey to Pennsylvania and across to Turnpike Exit 11 and up through the farms and hills in five hours and 20 minutes. I pulled into her driveway at 1:30 p.m., half an hour earlier than I expected to be there, and rang the doorbell only to see, moments later, her bright smiling face for an instant before she threw her arms around me saying, "You're early!" and kissing me despite my inability to stop smiling. My drive had taken me over the Delaware River, through three tunnels on the Turnpike, over Allegheny Mountain and through the town of Windber (Ramblers Refuse to Lose!) before exiting the Johnstown Expressway somewhere downtown. I drove out of town and up the hill, past some old historic arch and turned at the cemetery, apparently the sixth-largest in the country and a fine landmark.

And the minute I stepped inside the house, I felt at home.

Walking to the Inclined Plane, I imagined growing up there and walking those cracked sidewalks past the clustered houses, large comfortable homes along long streets. She talked of her younger days, of friends living in this house and her mom growing up in that house. There was the tiny store on the corner and not a mailbox to be found for the card her dad forgot to mail. In front of one house, a young black cat sat on the porch steps, which were decorated for October with two pumpkins and some dried cornstalks or something. We passed, but then turned back and I took some pictures as the cat stretched and then turned his attention to something rustling in the bushes next to the porch.

On up to the Incline we walked and then looked down over Johnstown. The cloudcover broke at times, reflecting off windows and rooftops, lighting up parts of the city. A train chugged along the river and in one of the parking lots, I spied a yellow Mercedes, an easy sighting among all the red and gray and black cars. She pointed out the McDonald's I passed on my way in and I could see the Haynes St. bridge too. I bought Will a shot glass because he used to collect them, always saying, "The cheesier the better," and I figured any shot glass from the Inclined Plane was cheesy. From the gift shop we walked up to the Mound, a small hilltop park with new playground equipment where we had them all to ourselves. She traversed the monkey bars and we rode the merry-go-round, taking pictures of one another with a slow shutter speed to blur the background. I ran over to the tire swing and after a little help getting started, spun myself dizzy before we walked back down the hill and home again.

And then, down in the basement with Kodi and T.C. -- the bony and the plump cats -- lounging around, we watched a tape of Adult Swim taped from Cartoon Network's Sunday night broadcast and laughed at Brak. Stretched on the couch, we lay there as Carol came home and my Meeting The Parents began with the Stepmom. And then the two of them left to pick up her car and I napped there in that Johnstown basement of my girlfriend's house, hearing her dad come home and come downstairs to look in the fridge and maybe look in on me, but I'm not sure. Later, when she came back, she kissed me hello and then checked her e-mail while I woke up slowly and then we went upstairs and as I looked at a book she showed me in Tessa's room, her dad came in and needed less than a minute to make a Notre Dame comment. I was wearing a blue long-sleeved t-shirt.

"Oh," he said, "I see you're still wearing the shirt. Do they play football there anymore?" I smiled and we talked a little football and he maintained that the Irish would likely still beat Pitt (his favorite team), though I suspect he was thinking all along, "No way!" He then left us to the book or pictures she was showing me and went downstairs. "We're leaving for dinner around 7, but I was going to open some wine and put out some cheese and put some music on." Moments later, U2's "Beautiful Day" was blasting from the living room stereo.

We changed into nicer clothes for the evening and joined her father Jim and his friend Tom in the kitchen. I'm not generally a wine drinker, but I know that's going to change hanging out with this family. Casey and I shared a bottle in New York at the beginning of the month, and on this night we put back a few. Eight, if I'm not mistaken. Five of us -- Casey, Carol, Jim, Tom and myself -- took care of two at home, and Jim brought six along to dinner, where two others joined us.

Yeah, my girlfriend's dad got me drunk.

At dinner, much of the conversation went to, left, and returned to golf. When the conversation wasn't golf, it often involved me -- Notre Dame, football, sports coverage, Rumson and other interesting topics of my New Jersey home. Back home after dinner, we stood in the kitchen some more drinking Iron City Light from the kegerator downstairs until people gradually started going to bed.

And though it was understood by the others that I'd sleep in Tessa's room and Casey would be in the adjacent room -- the two doors inches apart in the corner of the hallway at the top of the stairs -- she did not hesitate and came with me and we slipped under the warm covers on a cold night in Johnstown.

Maybe it was the wine and beer (La Vie Boheme!), maybe it was her lying next to me, maybe it was being in Tessa's room, but my dreams were varied and vivid. I woke up no less than four times between going to bed at 12:30 a.m. and rising to shower at 11, and it may have been more than six. And each time, it seemed, I awoke remembering a different and strange dream. The most memorable -- because of its clarity and the slight level of concern it sparked -- had me visiting the observation deck of the World Trade Center. (Here I will put the dream sequences in italics, kind of like on "Wayne's World" on SNL when Wayne and Garth would do the wavy-screen effect for dream-like scenes.) I was there and then a plane hit the building, and although it didn't really feel like a jetliner impact should (I imagined), I knew it was serious. I began descending the stairs and on the way down, as I turned corners and hopped from landings, taking the steps two at a time, I passed people as I descended -- and they were all former high school classmates, people I knew but was never friends with. Some were people I couldn't stand in high school, people who gave me a hard time or just weren't nice to me. Others were just classmates, people I had -- and have -- no ill will towards. I remember distinct people -- Abby, Rob, Pat -- but no idea why. And as I'm running down the stairs, they're all sitting there tired, right on the steps or on the landings, having given up already. I woke up before I'd even reached a smoking floor and figured that dream must mean something.

The other dream worth noting: On my way home from Johnstown, I stopped in Lancaster to see Tessa at school. I imagine this dream comes in part from sleeping in her bed. We've never met (still haven't), and now, after this trip, she's the last one I have to meet, having now met Casey's parents. And without knowing her, I pull off the turnpike for her college and find her and introduce myself and -- I think, but I may be making this up in hindsight -- she's as quiet and reserved as her mother and sister made her out to be.

After taking showers, we head west to Pittsburgh, a 90-minute drive along two-lane highways through small towns past Sheetz gas stations and probably a dozen "adult book stores," including one strip club with "100% naked live nude girls" (opposed to the dead nude girls), a drive-thru, and a pool (for the girls, not the customers). We've not eaten anything, though we didn't leave until 12:30 p.m., choosing instead to save our appetites for the original Primanti Brothers restaurant in the Strip District (which has nothing to do with live nude girls and everything to do with the strips of stores lining the city streets).

Looking out the window eating our tuna and cheese (her) and ham and cheese (me) sandwiches with tomato, cole slaw and fries (her) and just fries (me) included (on the sandwich, that's what makes it Pumanti Bros.), we watch for breaks in the cloud cover and discuss how Pittsburgh really isn't that bad a city, certainly not as it's made out to be -- you know, it's derrogatory Steel City image. It's quite charming, actually, as most cities built along rivers can be. But apparently it has more cloudy days per year than Seattle -- not surprising for anyone who's been to the Pacific Northwest during the summer months, when it's almost nothing but sunshine.

After lunch, we went over to the Andy Warhol Museum to look at Campbell's Soup cans and colorful Marilyn Monroes and Jackie Kennedys and the Smurf Mao. The sixth floor exhibit -- the rotating, non-Andy stuff -- was "Without Sanctuary," a history of lynching in America. Ninety percent of the postcards -- yes, they made postcards of lynchings in early 20th Century America -- were of lynched blacks accused of crimes. Of course, there was no mention of just how they were found guilty. And down in the basement we sat in the photo booth spending $6 on three sets of photos -- one for each of us and a third for Moom -- and saw on the schedule for the theater that two of Andy's films being shown (but not today because of "rehersal in progress") were Empire, sections of his eight-hour filming of the Empire State Building (nothing else, just the building) and the 41-minute Blow Job. In the gift shop, I spent more money than I'd anticipated, but it was all well-spent.

Having gradually fallen behind our rough schedule for the day, we left Pittsburgh without walking around the new PNC Park, the Pirates' new riverfront home where they'd finished their home season the day before (a loss to the Cubs) and sat in traffic while watching the tailgaters party under the expressway in anticipation of Pitt's 47-21 loss that night to top-ranked Miami. We made it to Greensburg by 6 p.m. where Moom was completely happy to see Casey and greeted me with, "I don't know you yet, but I'm going to hug you anyway." And in Moom I can see so much of Casey.

After (a sober) dinner we hurried through the rain and returned to the house to watch Friends and other mindless American TV and look through more photos while eating homemade chocolate cake. At 9:30 we ventured out again to drive back over the mountain to Johnstown, with Casey and Moom both worried and the safe return in my driving hands. After passing through one small town, we had most of the rest of the trip to ourselves on the dark mountain roads, save for three cars passing in the opposite direction. Back in Johnstown, we watched more TV and burned more CDs and fell asleep on the basement couch before lazily trudging upstairs and back to Bassett's room.

Parting was again difficult. Getting out of bed was difficult. But both were done and in the warm Johnstown sun on a cool autumn day we said goodbye in the driveway and I backed out and retraced my path back down 271 to Haynes St. through town and onto 56 and back to 220 and the Turnpike. In five hours after one stop for the restroom, pizza and a full tank of fuel, I pulled into work with three-quarters of a chocolate cake to share with my coworkers and an incredible feeling of not caring about my job, of not wanting to be there, of not wanting to be anywhere other than Johnstown -- really, as hard as that may be for some to believe.

I have more of a feeling now than ever of having left something behind, a part of me in her care, to hold safe until we're together again -- which will be Tuesday at the latest, perhaps Monday. But even if my next hug is just on the other side of the weekend, it's now become a situation where that's not soon enough. Each time we are together, we're learning more and becoming more comfortable. Each visit is more meaningful, and each goodbye more difficult, even if the hiatuses are getting shorter. After our first meeting in July, it was five weeks before we saw one another. After my Chicago trip, eight days. When she left New Jersey, it was one week until I arrived in Johnstown. This time it will be three days.

So just as you can learn more about someone by knowing her friends -- by the friends she chooses and the company she keeps, you can get a better feel for her -- you can learn just as much by experiencing her home. It's one thing to meet the parents, it's another to stay under their roof. It's one thing to see the pictures, it's another to walk the streets. It's one thing to hear the stories, it's another to stand in the basement with the pictures on the walls.

And I only feel like it's just begun.

Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends. - Jacques Delille, Malheur et Piti�, 1803