Took the “scenic” route to the local mall today. Looked to where my first house stands.
Not anymore. It’s gone. All that’s left is the cement slab and one tree.
This was the house Emo and I moved into a month before I had LilMiss. I went into labor just after I completed redecorating the second bedroom. I spent hours redoing the kitchen. LilMiss learned how to walk and pull herself up to the lovely overly large windows and watch the world outside, with one of the cats be her side more often than not. Heh, she learned how to say ‘Vroom vroom’ before she could say ‘Dada’. The wood floors I refinished all by myself - gone. The backyard was the site of many a BBQ. The clothesline that clotheslined a friend - gone. The tree that we ziplined down - gone. The breezeway that was “my” quiet place - gone.
Granted, I moved 9 years ago and love the house I’m in now (which is remarkably similar to that house), but it was MY first house.
And I’m kinda sad about it.
BTW, in the name of progress they’re building a frickin’ CVS Pharmacy there.
I shall always remember the house that I lived in untill I was 8 years old. T’was a good house. Warm in the winter, cool in sumer, an with many an awesome room in which to play. Now it resides only in my mind. Oh, the building is still there. It is now part of a bad neibourhood, covered in ugly plastic siding, and surounded by an ugly chain link fence.
I was recently in Minneapolis and drove past my old apartment where I lived during college. It wasn’t there. The buildings on both sides were there, but mine was just a vacant lot. Very eerie.
I’d really like to know what happened to it. Did it burn down? Was it condemned? Anyone know how to track those kinds of things down?
I’m with you - my childhood home burned down about 5 years ago (several years after my parents moved), and it’s disheartening when I drive by and see a vacant lot - though the fire didn’t get the huge walnut tree in the backyard (if being struck by lightning in '89 didn’t kill it, it obviously wasn’t going to be worried about some piddly housefire), so at least there’s something there to remember.
My parents sold the only house they ever owned about a year ago, and the new owners were going to do some serious remodeling and sprucing up, and resell it. They ended up abandoning the work after they had managed to tear up the front driveway, pull down the hedge and stop watering. They also completely dug up the back yard.
Now the house has been tagged as unoccupied by the city and the owners face civil fines or possibly criminal prosecution.
It’s sad to see your old house being allowed to fall apart; not to mention how awful it is for the neighbors to have to look at it every day when it’s in that condition.
My very first apartment no longer exists - an old friend of mine happened to be in Coronado a few years back and went by - she said the unit was gone. I’m not surprised. When I lived there in '75-'76, there was a section of the bathroom floor that was way too spongy for my liking. But it was the perfect first apartment - Murphy bed and all!
More shocking to me is the state of the neighborhood where I grew up. My folks left there in 1979, but I drove through there 2 or 3 years ago - were the houses really that tiny? Was the street really that tatty? I do think people took better care of their places back in the 60s, and I know most of the houses were owner-occupied. Now, I think most are rentals. It’s no longer my old home. Left me feeling a bit melancholy.
I’ve made an effort NOT to drive by my parent’s old house very often. It’s the only house they owned until I was 25. I really don’t want to know what the new owners have done to it.
Last time I was by my childhood home was about three years ago. It was still there and the front looked like it had always been, but a blue instead of dark green. When we headed out of town, I noticed that the house where my best friend lived was gone. The only thing left was a concrete slab and the barn across the street.
My mother’s still living in the house I grew up in. My family’s been living there in one configuration or another for 35 years. My mother’s probably going to live there until she dies. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the strength to sell it to strangers when that happens.
The house I grew up in is still standing, but I wish it were not. It was never a very nice house, but now it is a filthy slum, and when I drive past it, I feel a terrible sadness.