Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: DREDIOCK on May 17, 2005, 09:17:54 AM
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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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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.
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diving was considered dangerous and sex wasn't
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I'm fat, out of shape, have a 17 year old son, and I can't see my feet anymore. :D
Woof
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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.
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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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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 ; (
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Revere Beach
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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.
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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.
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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.
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population was 30,000, now it's well over 600,000, nuff said.
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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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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.
:(
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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..
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Mt. Pinatubo turned a good chunck of my Childhood into a pile of Ashes.
-Sik
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Way up in the mountains where I used to live there was a little lake called Squaw Lake that you could only reach by driving up a steep winding one lane dirt road with parts of it built up with sandbags so that there were 90 degree drop off's in places.
Once you got there you had to hike about a mile till you got to this massive madrone tree on a steep bank hanging way out over the lake with a cable tied to a branch high over the lake.
My friends and I had many a happy summer day swinging out over the lake getting twenty or thirty feet of air and then splashing into the clear cool water.
Of course someone thought it much to dangerous and cut down the tree to save us from ourselves.
The fishing, swimming, canoeing and camping are still great but given the choice of any place in the world, I would rather be swinging high out over that lake, in the summer, on a tree that is forever gone.
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
What things have changed from your youth?
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.
It used to stand up and watch me brush me teeth.
Now it just hangs; and watches me brush me shoes.
(Seeker's grand dad)
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The band room and its sacred rear steps are no more.
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this one time at band camp funked?
dear God where did you stick that flute?
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all the beaches down A1A south of Ponte Vedra are now private property with no parking signs where we used to park and hike over the sand dunes to nearly deserted Atlantic Beaches during HS 74 -77
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Sitting here thinking about it. the Brook and some of the memories.
Funny one that just struck me.
we were around 14 or so. Just started drinking beer.
We used to get quarts of ... Colt 45 "cause it was a malt." Also cause it was cheap. you could get a quart for like 50 cents
LMAO wtf did we know at that age.
There this chick named Jackie. She used to get us the money for the beer. Real cute chick with these eyes that could make anyone melt just by putting on her lost puppy dog face.
so she would hang outside the strip mall which was about 2 blocks from the brook and hit guys up for change usually with a story of her having lost her bus fare money to get home or needing money to call her mom so she wouldnt get in trouble.
Dont beleive I saw a guy ever not give her some spare change and usually it only took about an hour to get up enough money for a case.
At that point it became Jimmys job to get someone to get the beer for us.
Jimmy was our resident con man and flim flam artist.
We used to joke that he could probably Con the Pope out of the Vatican. He was that good.
So he would con someone into going into the liquer store and getting us the beer and we'd take it and head down the brook.
I say "down" the Brook cause here in Jersey you never go "to" anywhere. Your always going "Down to" whereever your headed.
Example. In Jersey you never go "To the beach" or "to the shore" You always go "Down the shore" and even when your "at the shore" your still "Down the shore"
From there you go "down to the beach" And only when you are actually standing on the beach in the sand are you ever "At the beach" And even then. your "on the beach"
Anyway, Point of the story.
There was this other chick name Laura, I remember sitting there down at the brook watching her drink from the bottle in the firelight and noticing she wasnt drinking it like one would normally drink. She had like half the bottle literally in her mouth guzzling away at it. I pointed it out to a couple of other folks and we teased her about it.
Bout a year later my oh my did she develop that talent into something useful
:D
Much to my delight
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The very person that was always there for me when I needed her for help , support , and general life issues , now relies on me for most of if not all those very same things.
Growing older can suck at times , as well as just growing up.
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I grew hair in places where I didn't think hair would grow, and I lost hair where I need it most-my head.
it's like every night some little ****ers transplant my follicles from my head to random parts of my anatomy.
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The fields where I grew up hunting rabbit and pheasant are now a maze of monstrous trucking warehouses. :mad:
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Originally posted by mosgood
About 7 years ago, I went back to the high school I went to in Seirra Vista, AZ.
I have to say... of all the places I've ever traveled because of work, Sierra Vista is the only one that I would consider moving to. I love that place.
Back on topic... while not necessarily youth, I was certainly young (23) when I joined the crew and I literally spent years onboard.
(http://www.ussleahy.com/LePhot/Leahy6.jpg)
I just discovered that the ship has been reduced to scrap.
(http://www.ussleahy.com/LeFin/LeahyRamp122804.jpg)
I'm sorry it's gone.
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Now thats sad
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Colour TVs and more than 2 channels , no analog mobile phones (10kg car phones, not really mobile...), no smoking in the busses or trains, no plastic furnitures...
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sheesh... I grew up in Los Angeles in the 50's... the place was paradise.
Talk about never being able to go home again.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
sheesh... I grew up in Los Angeles in the 50's... the place was paradise.
Talk about never being able to go home again.
lazs
hehe yup.. even into the 60's.
The town I live in now didn't exist when I was a kid....
Now has a population of 170,000
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my parents moved from one paradise to another... soon as traffic stopped on the highway for anytbing other than road work or a wreck...they figured it was time to move on.
short of a really good plague... there is no way to recover those places.
lazs