💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › posts › 1057 captured on 2024-05-26 at 15:24:48. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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I just drove virtually down the street to the house I spent most of my childhood in courtesy of Google Maps street view. Quite sobering to see a tree that I used to jump over now tower what I'm estimating to be some 70 feet tall. Um... wow.. yes, a blink of an eye indeed....
Another fun memory hit me viewing that. The house just south of ours was lower than ours for being on a hill, and at some point a couple who previously lived on my former (by then) paper route moved in there.
The kicker? I was a freshman in high school, and the daughter they brought with them was a senior. And a goddess. And she frequently sunbathed on a lawn chair on their back patio, which just so happened to be a perfectly unobstructed view from my south-facing bedroom window.
Ay yi yi..... :-)
I IRL went back home last week for the first time since the pandemic. Grew up in a really touristy area, much of the establishments had been the same since the 50s and 60s so I was amazed at how much had changed in just the past 3 years. Stores and restaurants closed down most likely due to the owner retiring or passing on and the family no longer wishing to run the business. A lot of new establishments popping up, distilleries and micro breweries. Most places fit in but there were a few eye sores that I was amazed were allowed to be built.
Hoping in a year or two the kids will be old enough to either come with or stay with the grandparents long enough for us to actually explore all the changes.
First part sounds sentimental
Second part sounds steamy 😳
Some weeks (months?) back I visited Google StreetView, Maps, Earth, etc. and I scrolled down the street I grew up on, and in front (when I lived there, 20 years ago) was a HUGE pine tree, and it was easily double the height of the house. Now, it is possibly triple that size. I'd climb it until I felt that the branches were too thin to support my weight, and get a great view of the 'burbs below, which was good, because our house was atop a hill.
Now, a religious fellow occupies the house. I have friends still in "the old hood", and they say when they see the dude coming/going from there, that he will always depart company with, "have a blessed day", and has some religious ephemera in the window.
It's a trip, seeing old places like that. I could never (re)visit the old town, because I would surely have some sort of psychological setback, and drudge up old (repressed) memories from wild days gone by.
I left that neighborhood (for good) when I was 18, and was taken for a psychiatric commitment by police officers after a complete meltdown of civility and sanity between me and some family members. I think I may have glanced back at the old place when the police vehicle was leaving, but is that last time I will ever see that structure (in person).
Strange, wild times. Indeed. Odd to think about.