What things have changed from your youth?
I mean thing that were there yet when you went back were somehow changed or you discovered suddenly gone?
Example. One of the things for me is a place we used to call "The Brook"
The Brook was a small patch of woods fronted by a large field with really tall grass maybe about 15-20 acres or so with a brook running through it in the middle of an otherwise developed area. Houses, 2 factories and railroad tracks surrounded it.
It was the place we used to go to hang out. Build forts. Later in our teen years party.
It was a place you could go and see birds and other creatures you didn't see anywhere else in the neighborhood
Held alot of fun and fond memories. The Flannagan brothers Building their tree forts at ungodly heights. The rope swing, Playing "army" or pretending to be explorers with make believe savage Indians potentially behind every tree.
Building small campfires while pretending to be camping out.
Carving all our names with considerable difficulty in that big old Oak.
Drank my first beers there. Had our first Keg party there.
Taking the local girls there for my first pieces of A.
I've visited the place on several occasions over the years, each time something was a little different.
The treehouse had eventually fallen apart only scraps of wood remained, a piece nailed here or there.
The pit we dug for our undergroud fort (till we hit water) had since almost completely filled in.
Couldnt for the life of me find that Oak with the names carved in it.
The Branch that held the rope swing had broken off.
The Beach like area had moved downstream about 20 yards.
But each time I visited it broght back memories and I could almost swear I could hear bits and pieces of long forgotten conversations almost as if they were somehow recorded there.
The last time I visited to my dismay. It was gone. All gone. The Brook was still there but everything else was gone, all the trees, Everything was plowed down.
They turned it into. Now get this. A park.
They could have left it as is and still made it a park but no. they leveled everything planted grass over its entirely and some new small trees here and there.
Its nice they made it a park But they ruined its charm in the process and made it very generic.
I feel like a part of me was stolen. Almost violated.
That was my childhood it held for safekeeping some of my very best and favorite memories. and now its gone.
