My grandmothers house burned down six months after she sold it. Supposedly an electrical fire. They had left Christmas lights on.
I drove by and it really bothered me seeing it gone. By granddad’s shed was still there untouched. A shame.
My parent’s old house got painted. The idiots actually painted my mom’s aluminum siding. Otherwise it looks the same on the outside. I’m not sure that I’d want to see inside. Too many memories.
The little white house I grew up in is now painted brown, and is missing its porch. The junior high and the high school I attended have been torn down, as has the public library (all rebuilt elsewhere). The city hall is closed, empty, and scheduled for demolition. The drive-in theater is a wreck of weeds.
But the downtown drug store’s still in business and doing fine.
When we moved to Spirit Lake, Idaho at the far end of town, there was this old oak tree towering(and leaning dangerously) over the house. My father wanted to cut it down, but Mom wouldn’t let him touch it. About a year after I left home for the U.S.A.F. the inevitable finally happened.
The house burned to the ground, and that damn tree stands to this day.
The cheesy tract house my parents felt lucky to afford in 1958 is still there and is cared for at least on the outside. The only thing I recognize (we moved out when I was 10) is the Modesto Ash tree in the front yard, now enormous. The Hetch Hetchy Aquaduct that was laid behind our house when I was six or seven (my friends and I played inside the gigantic concrete pipe sections) is now underneath a park path. The back yard used to look out on nothing but pasture and range land for twenty or thirty miles is now separated from that view by an interstate.
On the other hand, the house on three acres that my grandfather built a few miles away, where I lived from age 10 to 17, is still in the family and is ferociously gardened, just as in my grandmother’s day, by my sister and her partner. Maybe someday they’ll even get rid of that rust colored shag rug my mother installed in the 1970’s.
I lived in eight houses between the time I was born and I went off to college. I’ve been back to see the four most recent several times within the past ten years; they are mostly unchanged. I saw the one before that once about fifteen years ago. It also looked unchanged but it was hard to recognize because I was only ten years old when I last lived there.
I’ve never gone back to see the ones I lived in before that; it’s unlikely I’d recognize them because I really was small when I lived there.
I drove by my grandparents house, and a duplex i lived in as a kndergardner; but didn’t go inside either house, nor have I asked to be let inside. I just saw that the houses were there, and apparently occupied. I don’t know that it is a brilliant idea for me to ask to be let into a stranger’s home.
I loved my grandparent’s house when they were there, but now I realize how it was tiny, and only one person could cook in the kitchen at any time. I am not sure what is inconvienent about the duplex we had but it probably need some work and I KNOW that its street does not have enough parking space.
This house we’re in has way more space and a bigger kitchen and I like that space even though we’ll needd work done to fix the wiring, and new carpet.
Never, ever go back.
Nothing lives there but Loss and Unhappiness.
I’ve visited several former homes…
The house I lived in until I was 14 has been changed. The big-ass window on the kitchen has been replaced with an inferior smaller bay window. But worse is the absence of the two huge weeping cherry trees, one in front and one in back. They were awesome and unique to the neighborhood. In spring, they were magnificent.
I’ve driven past a couple of them without going in - they somehow all got a lot smaller since I was a kid.
Yes, we lived out in the country in DeLand, Florida in a house surrounded by citrus groves and lakes. The house itself wasn’t that special, probably cinder block and we had those glass shutter windows you could crank and about 25 rectangular panes would open in unison. It was small, a gravel driveway and heavily wooded and to a 7 year old it was paradise.
About 5 years ago we took my daughter to Disney and decided to revisit that old place when we were that close. Although I’d not been there in 40 years I was able to find it easily and to my relief it was in wonderful shape. While most of the groves are gone it’s still relatively undeveloped and out in the country. The owners were in the driveway, I stopped and we talked for about 20 minutes, me sharing the oldest memories and them relating what had happened since. It’s been renovated, enlarged, paved, etc and really is just in fantastic shape. It was a very nice visit and I’m so glad my kid, as old then as I was when I lived there, could see where I’d grown up.
Now grandmom’s old home where I did a lot of growing up is a different story. Once a palatial place in rural Ft. Worth, when she got old and moved into the city the hobos from the RR nearby moved in, tore it apart and when we caught them they burned most of it to the ground. We had to bulldoze it and now it’s just a wooded lot with no suggestion a beautiful home for many generations ever existed there.
Despite this being a zombie, all the houses I grew up in have been torn down. I think my hometown is trying to send a message.
My childhood home is a time capsule. Mom still lives there, and AFAIK, she still has the same earth tones color scheme that was there when I moved out 30 years ago. Other than having the roof re-shingled a few years back, I think the only changes she’s made were to buy a new TV and maybe a new microwave.
I went back a few years ago. There had been a kitchen fire. The inside was gutted. My cousins live in a trailer parked next to the old house. The house was so very small. It was a sad day.
Yes.
My parents left in 1992, after it was evident the neighborhood was on a permanent downward trajectory. Today, the area is a ghetto. My childhood house is in disrepair; weeds along the foundation and poking through the driveway and sidewalk joints, a satellite dish danging from a cable off the roof, the lawn dead.
My grandmother’s former house isn’t far away. Last time I drove by, it was painted in a garish green and yellow scheme, and it was boarded up.
Not my childhood house, but my current house. I’ve kept in touch with the granddaughter of the woman who lived and died here, at 99 years old. When I painted my house last year I sent the granddaughter pics. These are the letters she sent:
It makes me feel good that I’ve preserved and enhanced her childhood memories.
StG
I bought my childhood home off my parents and still live in it. I sleep in the same bedroom I did throughout my childhood, and my two-year-old daughter has what used to be my mum and dad’s room.
I enjoy seeing her playing in the same rooms where I have photos of me playing at her age. 
Visited the town and got the front of the house on tape but didn’t go inside. Probably should have 'cause I really had to piss and ended up going in the woods around the now-closed quarry.
Some (all?) of my sisters have been inside at various times.
I love the red. Great job.
Capt
That made me LGDTTQAPII!
Childhood memories? Nightmares, you mean.
Every piece of paper she ever scribbled on was saved in my mother’s house. She was a hoarder extraordinaire. When she was hospitalized, my sister and I spent $4000 to have 6 large dumpsters of trash, filth and whatnot hauled away. When she saw the nice clean inside of the house she was so shocked she couldnt speak except to squeak, “Alll my treaaaassssurrrrressss…” (Precioussss…)
It didnt take her long to amass a shitload of Treasures in it again and when she passed, we just turned it over to Habitat for Humanity as a donation (crap and all). Ill never go back there.
