A search for dark-washed jeans in OKC took me on an unexpected Memory Lane tour Saturday that elevated my heart rate, but not in a good way.

Instead of staying on May Ave. I turned onto Wilshire Blvd., then drove through the posh Nichols Hills district. That’s where I first saw my dream home in the 1970s.

That house made me want to see my first home.

The place where I awaited the birth of my son

Ṫhe neighborhood grocery store where the 10-month pregnant me had an accident in the checkout line.

Years later I refused to let the kids go with me to that store so I could sneak a Reese’s cup. The kids smelled my peanut butter breath anyhow, and I slept for hours to get over the blood sugar attack it gave me.

That store is gone now, replaced by several industrial-type buildings, and I didn’t remember the railroad tracks until I went over them. It was almost a reflex to turn onto a side street.

There were House for Rent signs at each corner.

Some houses had boarded up windows.

A man in a truck at a stop sign took a long look at me, probably because I drove so slow.

Homes looked tired and dull when I reached our street and searched for our gray brick house. I saw gigantic 417 numbers on a run-down gray house. Surely it wasn’t ours. Or was it?

I made a turn-around at the corner to go back for a better look.

The white pillars on the porch where the kids ate ice cream were gone, but it was next to the vacant lot where we’d played work-up.

The same guy in the truck was suddenly behind me, and I felt uneasy so turned onto the side street and headed north.

Soon a black SUV was behind me.

That’s when I heard my heart beating.

I checked out the vehicle in my rearview mirror for a few blocks.

It had spotlights.

I thought it might be a police car, but it had no top light bar.

It was only one more block to Britton Rd., which I thought would mean safety, when the black SUV turned around.

It had white POLICE letters on it.

I don’t recall seeing OKC on the SUV so I was still nervous for about three miles west until I got back to May Ave.

Once headed home on SH 74 I thought about the good times at 417. We played played cards and board games on a formica table in the kitchen. Momma had papered the kitchen in big, yellow flowers, and there were white sheer curtains on the windows. That’s where the kids and I watched my husband, Bill, hose down the brick and windows one hot, summer day.

We held back our laughter when we told him how much cooler he’d made it in the kitchen.

We had three small bedrooms. One started as a playroom, then we added a fish tank where we watched guppies being born. Two gerbils later lived in the tank, and the room held my husband’s elaborate N-gauge railroad tracks, engines and cars.

I have no idea how we worked it out when his oldest daughter, Jill, moved in with us and the four of us got ready for work and school in one bathroom.

We usually had his four kids and my son on weekends, and we’d let them stay up late to watch MASH on Friday nights.

That’s when I remember our kids bonding: “Get your foot off me!” I heard Bill’s middle daughter, Tracy, tell Nicky (my son and Bill’s adopted son).

That’s what she would have said to her younger sister, Amy.

Tracy was the same one who stood up for Nicky when he was bullied by the kid across the street.

Jill alerted us one day when Nicky was standing up to the kid. She watched out the garage door window. I was at the living room window while his Dad encouraged him from our bedroom window.

We all hooped and hollered at Nicky’s success.

Now that Jill is retired she comes to Hennessey often, and the other day I told her about my trip to 417.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said. “That neighborhood has had a bad reputation for years.”

It seems just like yesterday when I’d had The Talk and lectured her about boys yet she turned me into a child and she the parent as she went on and on about my dangerous Memory Lane trip.

All I could think about was that I still wanted a new pair of jeans.