You can't go home again

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The little town I spent my grammar school days in, as well as much of my earlier childhood, is painful to revisit. I did so not too long ago to see the gravestones my brother and I had ordered for our parents’ graves. Daddy died in 1995 and Mama in 1999. My brother and I have been away from that state since the 1960’s.

Both sets of grandparents lived there. Their houses are no longer there. One house was bulldozed to provide space for a bank parking lot. The other house was cleared for a church lot. The house I lived in as a kid was also taken over by that same church and eventually demolished. Nothing remains of those houses I knew as a kid.

The house my parents had built in another town in the early 50’s was sold before my mother died. We cleared it out of their belongings in 1996.

Going back to either town is now just an empty venture with no buildings to go home to. Driving through those places and looking at the empty lots where those houses used to be, or at the still-standing house that some other family is now calling home, is a reminder of just how fast history swallows the present.

Unless a family is well-set enough to have their property preserved for their descendants, or famous enough to have it go into public property like museums, the odds are good that many more families are like mine: here today, gone tomorrow.

Do any of you have similar stories?

2

Wow, that brought me down fast. I can still drive by the house I grew up in, its only a few minutes away from where I am now. My parents moved a few years ago to a cheaper part of town to save on property taxes. The sold the house we all grew up in and let me tell you, its weird and painful to drive by it now. I’m 30 years old now, but its all still fresh to me. I hate that someone else is living there in the same room I used to sleep in every night. I hate that he’s using the part of the back yard my brother and I used to play with swords in (ok garden stakes really). Mostly I can’t stand that I am not allowed to park in the drive way, go through the front door (which would be unlocked), and see my family there. I never knew nostalgia would hurt, but it does to me.

3

I recently drove past the house where I grew up. My folks sold it in '79, and the whole neighborhood has changed tons since then. The beautiful forsythia hedge that gave us a private back yard is all gone, as is the sassafras canopy over the patio. The slopes that were full of flowers every spring are now just grass. But the most surprising thing is how small the house is! Seven of us lived in there sharing a single bathroom - I don’t think the house was even 1000 sq ft! It’s changed enough that I feel no twinge about that house, but I do wax nostalgic about my childhood there.

The house my dad grew up in is in a section of Baltimore that has changed amazingly! When my grandparents lived there, it was a scruffy working class neighborhood. There was a fish processing plant across the street and another manufacturing facility down the block. Today, that neighborhood is one of the most desirable in Baltimore. New townhomes are going up - to the tune of $300K and up. The old house is still there - the house my dad was thrilled to sell for $4K in the early 70s, the house that had one bathroom - in the basement! That house is worth over a quarter of a million dollars now! I’d love to see inside there - I remember as a child climbing up to the 3rd floor and looking out over the harbor. Guess that’s why it’s worth so much now.

The only place I hate to drive past is the waterfront neighborhood where my husband and I bought our first house together. It was such a wonderful place to live, and I hated to have to leave. I’ve driven down our old street once in the last 3 years. Never again. I miss it too much.

4

Well, Zeldar, I can relate. I haven’t been back to the town I grew up in in Montana since we left 13 years ago, but my parents and sister both have. The people who bought that cute little house really let the place go. From the pictures I’ve seen, it’s almost looks like we just locked the door in 1990 and it’s stood there empty ever since. The vinyl siding still looks good, but the trim is unpainted, the trees are overgrown, the deck my father built is falling apart from lack of maintenance. My sister was back there this summer, and she says that they don’t even bother to mow there anymore. Also, apparently the city has never, in about 15 years, been able to deal with our neighbor who was keeping old cars on blocks and other junk in his yard, and the cow pasture behind us is now a trailer court. This decline in the neighborhood was part of the impetus for my parents to move in the first place, and it looks like they made the right decision.

Frankly, it wouldn’t bother me so much that other people were living there if they were actually enjoying and taking care of the place and making their own changes, rather than just letting neglect and decay take over. I’d love to see other children digging in the garden and curled up reading in the chokecherry tree. Maybe the house will someday be sold cheap to a young couple like my parents who can fix it up again. I doubt they’d have bought a house next to a junkyard and a trashy trailer court, though.

And, yes, there’s no family left in Montana now (we were the last ones) and perhaps I have friends in the area, but probably not in that town (unless they still live with their parents). Many have probably moved far away where they economy is better, just like we did. I wrote to some of them throughout high school, but we lost touch in college, so who knows where they are now. I left just after eighth grade, so I doubt I’ll be invited to any class reunions, either.

My mom also visited the town she grew up in in Montana…she ended up visiting some of her old friends’ parents in the nursing home, since they were about the only people she knew still around.

5

My parents still live in the house my brothers and I grew up in, but they’re doing a lot of renovating, so it looks the same on the outside, but quite different inside.

The one that gets to me is my maternal grandmother’s house. She died in the spring of 1995, and we spent that summer cleaning out the house, painting and getting things together for it to be sold. It went fairly quickly - but when I happen to drive by it, I just feel sad - there never seems to be anyone around, I know it’s been resold at least twice since she died…but there were good memories tied up in that house, and it looks sort of forlorn.

6

Thanks for these replies, folks. You’ve helped me remember some additional details. The house I live in now is only nominally bigger than the one my first wife and I bought after our second child was born. Before that we lived with my wife’s parents for five years. In fact, I moved into that house (had a private room) before we even married. After the move, our third child came along and as the kids got into high school the old place just didn’t have the room for them to have some privacy. So this place does at least have an extra bedroom and a second bath.

That first house is across town and every now and then I’ll drive by and remember those earlier days there. The big old porch I used to sit on and write poetry and play my guitar still looks as comfortable as ever. They’ve actually made the place look better than when we were there. All three of my kids like to remember that place as our “home” instead of this one. It’s like that with me and the old place (now demolished) where I was a youngster instead of that still-standing place where I went to high school from. I guess the earlier places have the stronger memories attached.

The bright side of my story is that after my first wife’s parents died (1993 and 1996) my kids got their inheritance and my daughter got the house she came home to from the hospital after her birth. (We even have home movies of her arrival there.) So, except for a few years when she was out on her own after college, and while her three kids were coming along, she’s been able to “go home again” to the very first house she knew.

It’s not all sad. Just mostly.

7

My middle school got bulldozed, my dad is dead, and I live 1100 miles away. Going home is bittersweet.

8

A few years ago I went back to my elementary school and the halls were smaller and the place was eery.

The church that I had gone to for 20 years had totally been redone and I didn’t like it. They had remodeled it to be very fancy and it lost its quaintness.

The house that I had lived in looked just the same. As I stood outfront of the house with my best friend a woman came out and asked if she could help us with something. I just told her that I used to live in the house and wanted to peek at it.

The neighbors houses were all run down and it appeared several of them had added on sometime during the years prior.

It just didn’t feel the same.

9

From this thread:

The Oakland Beehive: 1992-2002

The Beehive, in the Oakland district of Pittsburgh, is no more.

To some, it was “the old King’s Court theater”. To some, it was “the Oakland Beehive”, as opposed to the original Southside Beehive. To me, it was simply The Beehive.

Note the year. It wasn’t just about coffee, it was about coffeehouses. It was a coffee house. It was a movie theater. It was a place to pay “seventeen dollars for a piece of cake”, as a classmate once scoffed (though people rarely bought the baked goods). It was a place to hear acoustic music. It was a place to be.

It was always in flux; they were always adding something, like a room full of pinball machines, or redoing the flooring. I saw so many changes. There were two floors and a rickety staircase, but they were handicapped-accessible: if you were in a wheelchair, an employee would carry you up! For real; I saw it done.

Friend worked there. Another friend (Till) used it practically as his office. Doug played acoustic there. I performed with him once. Me and him and a guy called Killer. Killer and I sang “Fairytale of New York” while Doug played guitar and Taka played the harp (harmonica, but we always called it the ‘harp’). Then we sang backup on “Dead Flowers”; then Doug did his original stuff unaccompanied.

Mr. Rilch and I went there on one of our first dates, to see Reservoir Dogs. I went there to cry after a storekeeper chewed me out for not dissing a homeless guy. I went there in winter to sit by the fire with hot cider. I went there in summer, after pulling eight at McDonalds, to rest my feet before walking home. I went there to sober up, to warm up, and to meet people.

The last night that Mr. Rilch and I were in Pittsburgh before leaving for LA, he stopped the U-Haul in front of it so Friend could run in for some reason. It was all I could do not to go in after him. I just sat there with my head down, flinching from all the lights and sounds and feeling the heart being torn out of me.

And now it’s gone. Along with Jerry’s Used Records, Ice-Nine, the building where Pittsburgh Filmmakers used to be, Avalon Vintage Clothing, c.j. barney’s, Oasis, the Roy Rogers that housed the infamous karaoke machine that lasted a week and a half…I don’t know about the Upstage. But there are no more lights and sounds. Oakland is a wasteland.

At least to me.

Well, the O is still there. When they drop the bomb, there will still be the O. But I feel like Snoopy, when he went back to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, and found, instead, a six-story parking garage. “You stupid people! You’re parking on my memories!”

If you stay away long enough, eventually all your memories will have been parked on.

10

We visited my grandfather’s house in Spokane the other day; Dad sold it when Grandfather died, maybe twenty years ago.

It looks great (in contrast to the other posters’ experiences). The garden is much nicer than it had ever been before, the paint is fresh; it looks as though whoever lives there loves the place and is taking good care of it.

Good to know.

11

A few months ago my boyfriend and I made a trip up to Cambria where my grandparents lived when I was a girl. It is a beautiful little town next to the ocean, right below Hearst Castle. I spent many summers there~ those times remain among my best memories.
I wanted to show my boyfriend my grandparents old house, and after driving around for a while I found it. It was only due to location and the neighbors houses that I recognized it. The beautiful green two story house has been turned into a glass walled behemoth. I think the residents left only two walls of the original house intact. The pine trees that were in the front yard are gone. ACCCKKKKK.
After standing by the side of the road staring for a while, I told myself that whomever owned the house now are probably enjoying it, where my grandparents are well beyond that now. And heaven help the new owners if there is ever an earthquake.

12

I came back to Anchorage after an absence of 30 years. The house I grew up in is still standing and looks so tiny now. The spruce tree that I used to decorate for Christmas is now about 50 feet tall. They’ve painted over the cheery yellow paint that my mother picked out; the house is now a drab nondescript color that is probably causing her to roll in her grave.

But the good memories are still with me and I like driving through my old neighborhood from time to time. It’s become a touchstone when I’m feeling blue. Many of the houses are still there and I can recite the names of the former occupants I remember as I drive down the street. The place has a feel to it, and seeing it instantly brings back the air and light and emotions of childhood.

It doesn’t make me sad, but can make me maudlin.

13

My parents still live in the house I grew up in so I’m not yet into that stage yet but the other day my father took me on a little tour of all the places of his youth and I was trying so hard not to cry the whole time.

We had just dropped my Grandma off at the airport and said goodbye for what may be the last time because she is moving several hours away after living in the same state for 83 years. My Pap has been dead for gasp almost 7 years. (Wow. What a realization that just was.) So my Dad was trying to cope with saying goodbye to his Mother. He took me to where he grew up and my Mom grew up and the church they got married in and he told me sweet little stories about when they first were dating. It was just so sad and depressing and it made me ache for the old days at my Grandparent’s house at Christmas with all the kids around. Now everyone is scattered across the country and we just don’t feel like a family anymore.

Okay it doesn’t look good to cry at work so that’s all.

14

Thanks, Aeris, for sharing that. I imagine you must have read Almost Home which was started by missred on 11-28-2011, 08:29 PM and which included this post

That’s what prompted my post there of links to similar themed threads. I see that you, Aeris, have followed at least two of those links and replied to them.

In spite of their “zombie” status as threads go, I hope the timeless nature of what’s being addressed will allow them to stay open longer.

15

The childhood house I lived in during the 70s, the one in Waukesha County, is gone.

They widened the highway.

16

My parents’ old house is still standing, but my grandparents’ was pulled down and the extra land sold for McMansions. The cemetery where they are all buried, which was surrounded by farmland owned by the seminary, is now crowded by stores and offices now that the seminary leased the land to corporations. The navy base we drove past to get to my grandparents was sold by the government and is now stores, houses, schools, and just all built up. I find it all so sad, but life can’t stand still just for me.

17

We moved a lot until I was 11 or so, so I never really formed a strong attachment to any one house.

The house we lived in until I became an adult and moved out is still there, and looks pretty much the same. Many of the original neighbors are still there also.

But, when I hear stories about the people I grew up with and went to school with, it depresses the hell out of me. I stopped going out anywhere in this town, because it seemed I always ran into some wreck of a human that used to be a fun kid in elementary or junior high school. Sure, I know not every one of them ended up that way, but there are just too many.

18

I see my grandfather’s hopuse every week-it hasn’t changed in any subtsnatial way, since they passed on (over 30 yuears ago).
I still have fond memories of that house.

19

Wow, this is a blast from the past. I have been back to Montana twice since I posted in this thread, most recently two years ago. The house looks shabby, but it still stands. Looks like they were finally going to pave the street…probably done by now, but who knows? They let the hedges grow up to block the view of the “junkyard” neighbor. I cannot believe that mess has been allowed to go on for almost a quarter of a century now.

Thanks to Facebook, I am now in touch with many of the people who I grew up with there, and who now live all around the United States. Saw some of them two years ago, and that was fun.

20

The houses I grew up in are still where they were…the first house I lived in, however, has changed alot. My niece lives in that town and she and her husband looked at it when it was for sale. She said everything was different in it. I know that things are different there…the woods and empty lot across the street now are all built up…the Lubees moved away from next door, and the Maguires have passed.

The other house I lived in Jersey has gone to rack and ruin. The park has been upgraded alot, and Mrs. Gulino still lives next door. The Martinkuses have long retired and moved away…

In NY, all remains the same, per my neighbor. A few different families now…I see the kids are all grown up and have families of their own (per facebook)…the village has really expanded though…and the schools have gotten bad. (Alot of people from NYC moving up there now…)

When I went to Mississippi to finalize my divorce, almost did not recognize Canton, town I had lived in…urban blight and despair had taken over in 2004…