Author Topic: Things that have changed from your youth  (Read 643 times)

Offline DREDIOCK

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Things that have changed from your youth
« on: May 17, 2005, 09:17:54 AM »
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.
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Offline mosgood

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2005, 09:37:24 AM »
About 7 years ago, I went back to the high school I went to in Seirra Vista, AZ.  I was looking forward to walking around the halls and seeing if any of my old teachers were still around and reminising about my youthful adventures there.  When I got there I was shocked to see that it was closed down and parts were torn down.  The teachers parking lot was made into a used car lot and most of the windows were broke.  The whole school was abandoned!

I eventually found the new and much larger school and walked around for a little while until a found on of my old band teachers.  I couoldn't believe how grey his hair had gotten and he was talking about how his getting ready for retirement.  He was a young when a knew him before.


This experience reinfored in me that your really can't ever go back.

storch

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2005, 09:38:52 AM »
diving was considered dangerous and sex wasn't

Offline SkyWolf

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2005, 09:40:07 AM »
I'm fat, out of shape, have a 17 year old son, and I can't see my feet anymore.  :D

Woof

Offline midnight Target

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2005, 09:49:20 AM »
There was an irrigation system / drainage ditch that ran.. still runs through my old home town. It was originally built by the Native Americans, then improved by Morman settlers and eventually expanded by the Orange barons who moved in. It was always called the Zanja (pronounced san-key for some reason).

We would play in this ditch all summer long. You could traverse the city... sometimes going under busy streets but mostly down the middle of orange groves.. for miles and miles.  It was fun, scary and ours!

I went back recently and the whole damn thing is fenced off. They think some kid's gonna drown or get caught in a flash flood. It is all concrete now.

Offline JB88

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2005, 09:51:31 AM »
i dont have to come in when the streetlights come on.

a blessing and a curse.

i used to pack more into an afternoon.
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Offline JB73

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Re: Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2005, 10:33:44 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by DREDIOCK
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.
better than an apartment building and a road over it like my area like yours

a clinic over the field / woods area near it.

a shopping mall over the best trails in the woods.

a old folks home over the best jump in the trails in the woods

i still live within 1 mile of all this, and watched my childhood disappear, bit by commercial developement bit ; (
I don't know what to put here yet.

Offline Sixpence

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2005, 11:00:15 AM »
Revere Beach
"My grandaddy always told me, "There are three things that'll put a good man down: Losin' a good woman, eatin' bad possum, or eatin' good possum."" - Holden McGroin

(and I still say he wasn't trying to spell possum!)

storch

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2005, 11:17:02 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by midnight Target
There was an irrigation system / drainage ditch that ran.. still runs through my old home town. It was originally built by the Native Americans, then improved by Morman settlers and eventually expanded by the Orange barons who moved in. It was always called the Zanja (pronounced san-key for some reason).

We would play in this ditch all summer long. You could traverse the city... sometimes going under busy streets but mostly down the middle of orange groves.. for miles and miles.  It was fun, scary and ours!

I went back recently and the whole damn thing is fenced off. They think some kid's gonna drown or get caught in a flash flood. It is all concrete now.


sanja or zanja is spanish for ditch.  but one never knows why kalifornians do or say what they do.

storch

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2005, 11:19:27 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Sixpence
Revere Beach
 roger that. I lived on Nahant for a bit while stationed on the USS Bigelow in drydock at South and East Boston.  that whole area has changed dramatically.

Offline Siaf__csf

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2005, 11:37:00 AM »
We had a place a bit like yours Drediock. Then the wildest one of the group got himself killed at the age of 15.

We stoped going there. Now it's a housing area.

But I can still see the place and the memories through the buildings.

Offline Torque

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #11 on: May 17, 2005, 11:43:11 AM »
population was 30,000, now it's well over 600,000, nuff said.

Offline rpm

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #12 on: May 17, 2005, 12:16:06 PM »
The east pasture where I used to feed cattle as a kid is now full of mobile homes, with the associated wrecked out vehicles in their backyard.

The stock tank (pond, for you yankee types) where I watched my Grandfather wrestle a 14lb catfish on the end of a cane pole for over an hour before finally landing him into the boat is gone. It was bulldozed in and some guy from Ft.Worth now has his weekend home there and uses it for a tax write-off.

The "home place" where my grandparents built their first house is now subdivided and bears no resemblence to the 600 acres I used to roam as a kid.

Progress sucks.
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Offline slimm50

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2005, 12:23:33 PM »
Hey, DRED, we had a place just like that when I was growing up. We simply called it "The Woods". Built "forts" and "hideouts", rode treetops to the ground, or into other trees, played "army" and "knights" (trash can lids for shields and wielding long sticks for swords).

Now "The Woods" is gone completely. In its place is a Coca Cola bottling plant and distribution center., surrounded by an open field. At least now though you can sit in the grass and watch the airplanes come and go, as it overlooks one end of the Birmingham Airport.

:(

Offline Hawklore

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Things that have changed from your youth
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2005, 12:41:27 PM »
My grandparents house use to be out in the country..

Now there is a elemantry and middle school there, a draininge lake..

Concrete 'bunkers' as me and my grandad would call them when we played army are now under dirt, and the stream enbankment has now eroded away in most places.. not allowing the good old fishing trip to catch baby fish...cause we gotta put those back as I said..
"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
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