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Recent experience has shown me just how true this is.
Last week, We took a short trip to the beach. We took a different route than we usually do, one that took us through an area where I lived from 6th -12th grade. I took the opportunity to drive my wife past the house we used to live in. It was depressing. It was falling into disrepair.
This was particularly heartbreaking because when my folks originally bought the house it was a derelict that hadn't been lived in for some time, and they put a lot of work during the time we were there turning it into a nice place to live. To see it backsliding was sad.
This in turn got me thinking about where we had lived before that, an 80 acre farm in MN. Being half the country away, driving past the place wasn't a practical option. The last time I was there was when we visited in '92, and I shot a bit of video of it, from which this screen shot is taken.
The original garage/sauna was gone, but the house, main barn and horse barn were pretty much as I remembered them from some 23 yrs earlier even if they were different colors.
So I opted for the next best thing: Google Earth.
The farm I grew up on no longer exists for all practical purposes.
Here's the overhead shot of the area, with this picture showing the the original 80 acres.
It now has a road through it and is divided up among several homes. The white rectangle marks out where our house was.
Even the area inside the rectangle is almost unrecognizable. The original house is gone as are most of the other buildings. The only original structure left is the barn.
Here's a closer look, with the major changes noted with approx positions of the original buildings (though I realize that I've somewhat misplaced the horse barn). The building with the black X is new (replaces garage/equip shed, I presume)
That being said, there are some landmarks that are still recognizable enough. Such as the area marked "old root cellar" on the top image.
This is what it looks like now from google street view (zoomed in from the road)
And here is a picture Mom painted of it while we were living there (as seen from the house).
If you look close, you can still just make out where the old root cellar was.
After nearly 50 years, I guess that's at least something.
How about anyone else? Ever go back to your childhood home to find it very different from how you remembered as being?
Last week, We took a short trip to the beach. We took a different route than we usually do, one that took us through an area where I lived from 6th -12th grade. I took the opportunity to drive my wife past the house we used to live in. It was depressing. It was falling into disrepair.
This was particularly heartbreaking because when my folks originally bought the house it was a derelict that hadn't been lived in for some time, and they put a lot of work during the time we were there turning it into a nice place to live. To see it backsliding was sad.
This in turn got me thinking about where we had lived before that, an 80 acre farm in MN. Being half the country away, driving past the place wasn't a practical option. The last time I was there was when we visited in '92, and I shot a bit of video of it, from which this screen shot is taken.
The original garage/sauna was gone, but the house, main barn and horse barn were pretty much as I remembered them from some 23 yrs earlier even if they were different colors.
So I opted for the next best thing: Google Earth.
The farm I grew up on no longer exists for all practical purposes.
Here's the overhead shot of the area, with this picture showing the the original 80 acres.
It now has a road through it and is divided up among several homes. The white rectangle marks out where our house was.
Even the area inside the rectangle is almost unrecognizable. The original house is gone as are most of the other buildings. The only original structure left is the barn.
Here's a closer look, with the major changes noted with approx positions of the original buildings (though I realize that I've somewhat misplaced the horse barn). The building with the black X is new (replaces garage/equip shed, I presume)
That being said, there are some landmarks that are still recognizable enough. Such as the area marked "old root cellar" on the top image.
This is what it looks like now from google street view (zoomed in from the road)
And here is a picture Mom painted of it while we were living there (as seen from the house).
If you look close, you can still just make out where the old root cellar was.
After nearly 50 years, I guess that's at least something.
How about anyone else? Ever go back to your childhood home to find it very different from how you remembered as being?