Those Days

[thistlebloom]

@aftermidnight .
I love your stories of time with your grandparents.
What a wonderful relationship you had with them.

 

[flowerbug]

you guys are lucky. i never knew either of my grandfathers. my Mom was raised by her grandparents and my great grandfather passed away when i was 2 yrs old. he taught me to stack and knock down dominoes. i don't recall his face. he smoked cigars so the faint smell of cigars is nostalgic to me. they were across the road from a railroad yard, and i grew up with those sounds. the place we moved to had a railroad track nearby so we could hear them come by every day. they were large claypits and the clay would be left in cars along the siding and we'd go jump in and grab chunks for playing around. it was a very pure white clay.

the old clay pit where we used to swim and fish is still there. the large nursery in the area bought it so they could use the water for irrigation. the newer clay pit which was still being dug when we moved in eventually closed down and then some years later was turned into a landfill. which filled up by the time i returned to the area. that is now still there and also closed up, but they've put up a building and now use it as the local drop off for e-waste, paints, chemicals (to keep the pollution out of the groundwater, rivers, etc.). when i get a chance later this spring i'll be dropping things off there and can mention the history if anyone cares.

the place where i spent 14 years before going off to college was kitty corner from a small dairy farm (it is run down and not going now, but most of the land is still intact by the looks of things - we drove by there the other day as it is on the way to some shopping places). there was a field out back with ponds in it. we could swim and run around all day back there, nobody cared. also there were the woods down the road on the other side of the railroad tracks.

one part of that old wooded area was a place we called Indian Hill. not that we ever found anything, but it was always fun to play there and mess around digging in the sand. a few hundred yards further into the woods was an informal old dump site which had all sorts of old things which as kids we'd line up and shoot with the bb-gun. many years later when i was digging for bottles with a friend i cringed to think how many bottles we destroyed. we never found anything super fancy or interesting though, except i think a perfume bottle one time, but it was missing a top and chipped so likely not worth much. i still wonder if it was ever actually cleaned up and gone through or if it just was buried and forgotten. i doubt i could find it today...

once the field behind the house was turned back into a cattle grazing space i was by then mostly out of the age of playing back there. still it was a loss. they plowed down the hills they'd made and filled in the ponds. a few years later i was off to college. i think it is farmed land now and not grazed.

railroad tracks are still there.

one reason i really wanted to go to college where i did and loved the residence hall i was in was that it was next to the rail line for the area (which came across the lift bridge). it ran once a day. then the next year it ran once a week. then the next year it barely ran at all and was shut down. the rail line eventually was turned into a trail along the shoreline, but they dug up all the interesting trees and shade and replaced it with leftover rock from the copper mines. they were redoing the sewage treatment plant and had to run the line along there.

a few weeks before i left (after being there 15 years) i was walking along that new trail and happened to see a funny shaped rock. it turned out to be a hunk of copper, somehow they'd missed it and there it was. i still have it, on the ledge, by the fireplace...

 

[Zeedman]

Wow... having read of others experiences, I'm now more convinced than ever to not revisit the land previously owned by my grandparents. It was bad enough returning to my home town after being away for 20 years, I hardly recognized the place. DW recently flew back to visit her childhood home overseas, after 40 years, and had an even more disheartening experience. That saying "you can never go home again" rings true... it won't be the place you remember.

 

[Beekissed]

You can say that again. An evil cousin inherited my grandparent's place and stripped the place like my grandparents had never existed and built himself a huge modular home across the road from it where we used to have our family reunions.

The whole place has changed so much you can't even pick out familiar landmarks of where things USED to be. No old house, no barns, no fences, no cute little one room cabin, no anything...the place even looks much smaller than it used to be.

Doesn't matter to me...that place is the one that doesn't exist for me. In my mind the old farm still lives in vivid technicolor that never fades, never deteriorates and all the things we did there still live on just as vividly in my memory. Only time and dementia can steal that and then I won't even know enough to care.

I drive by the place of my endless summers several times a week and it has changed in many ways too, but many of the old homes and landmarks still exist much like they used to, though our old home is now gone.

The farms around about are no longer thriving and functioning, some are sold off and parted out to scruffy little places of hillbilly hot mess. No one comes out to the summer cottages any longer and the neighborhood no longer has a wave of kids, teens, etc. coming and going among the houses. No bikes or horses being ridden, no one fishing off the bridges.....no life being lived at all like it used to be.

The only way you can go back now is in your memory and dreams.

 

[valley ranch]

Kinda looks like Ichabod Krane ~ however lo si scrive ```

 

[valley ranch]

Quote Collector: "I am not an emotional person but I am really nostalgic."

Collector if you'r really nostalgic ~ you'r emotional```

 

[Collector]

Quote Collector: "I am not an emotional person but I am really nostalgic."

Collector if you'r really nostalgic ~ you'r emotional```

Could be lol.
Regular day to day though I am a practical person. I don't make decisions based on emotion.
Unless I see, smell, or taste something that reminds of distant memories or people from the past. Then who knows what I will do I might buy an old truck lol.

 

[Nyboy]

A couple of years ago the weekend summer cottage my parents own came up for sale. I have a lot of great memories of that house. The ad showed a lot of up grades made in 30 years since my parents owned it. The whole mountain was summer cottages, none where heated, water pipes where above ground turned off in fall. It was all families escaping the city on weekends. 30 years later all houses where winterize. The mountain had a very bad drug problem, the realtor tried to warn me, but I had to see for myself.

 

[digitS']

loved the residence hall i was in ... few weeks before i left (after being there 15 years)

We're you in that residence hall for 15 years?

Steve

 

[digitS']

Once, when I was "pulling an all-nighter," a very rare occurrence while I was in college, I looked at myself in the the mirror.

"I'm changing into a wolf!"

I made the decision to go to bed earlier. It wasn't a bad idea.

Scrivener digitS'