Do you ever visit places of the past?

[johngolf]

If visiting an area that I once lived in, I will take a nostalgia tour. When on the computer and bored, I will Google Earth/Zillow homes I have lived in. I do not believe in nor make a habit of living in the past.

[LowonLuck]

Originally Posted by Sprawling_Homeowner

Thanks to online maps and some websites showing photographs of downtowns, villages, cities, etc., it's all too easy nowadays to see what houses and streets where we grew up or where we hung out often in decades past look like today.

I've done that a number of times; what I do find about one particular house and neighborhood is that while I still remember, after more than 30 years, the basic streets from that house to downtown, that the area itself has changed dramatically, with new buildings and businesses.

I do, as well, have photographs from those times.

I also mapped my elementary school. It's still there, but there was major architectural renovation, and the streets right outside the school still look mostly the same.

For that area where I was a child, distance and time and other commitments keep me from visiting, but it's something I'd like to do in the future. I plan of course to take photographs from the past and compare them to how the scenery is today.

With areas that are more recent, such as where I lived when I was a teenager, and places where I then lived in my 20s, the curiosity is lower - most probably because unlike the area where I lived as a child, most of these other areas aren't far from here and I can go there anytime - and because the changes have been fewer. In contrast, the town where I lived as a child... I only visited twice after moving away at the time I hit puberty, and the last visit was more than 20 years ago.

If you currently live far from where you grew up/studied as a child, how often do you get to visit and when you do, what is it like? How many of the people you knew as a child in those places still live there?

For me, going back to the town where I lived as a child, almost all of the people of my age range I knew when I was in elementary school no longer live there; they've moved to bigger cities. A very small handful remain - they've lived there their entire lives.

I do believe that as I'm getting older, I find myself reminiscing about the place of my childhood more often even as I am always preoccupied and occupied by the demands of life.

I still live in the town I grew up in. My parents still live in the house I grew up in. My kids go to the schools that I did. My daughter has had a few teachers that I had and a few teachers that I grew up with. I guess I don’t know what’s it like to reminisce about my town because very little has changed. Sure sometimes I miss restaurants that closed decades ago, or houses that burned down, friends that moved away but overall not much has changed. A bunch of us never left. Some went to college and returned with families.

[BabyBear1234]

I also live in the same city that I was born in so I can see a lot of things first hand that have changed and looking back online I can remember what used to be there. Anyhow, DH and I moved last year and occasionally we will go by our old house/neighborhood just for the heck of it...definitely a nostalgic feeling (not the good kind either). The people who bought it tore down our old swingset/treehouse that we put up when our oldest was only 3. So many memories! Yes it was old and needed to come down but it was still hard to see that it wasn't there anymore I mean, I get it though...the thing was a bit of an eyesore at this point and I'm sure they had no need of it (no kids) and it didn't mean anything to them. *sigh*....the neighborhood itself is slowly going downhill...one of the reasons we left. My son's friend lived 2 houses down and they moved shortly after we did. The neighbor on the right sold to a flipper who renovated it and resold it. The people who bought it apparently decided that they needed to have Santa's village up from Nov 1-Jan 1....I've never seen such a gaudy display of Christmas decorations! Glad I don't have to live next to it!!!! It will be interesting to see what happens to the whole neighborhood in the future.



My brother recently sold his house and it was the same one we grew up in...I said my good byes years ago to it years ago but I think my mom is having a hard time letting it go.


Edit: looking at google maps I can see that the street view of our old house is from summer of 2011...my husband's car and the baby stroller give it away

[bmwguydc]

I do sometimes check on a couple of houses that I owned, and one that I almost bought back in LA. That was a weird experience as it was a house where I lived when I was engaged to a wonderful woman, with whom we could not get in sync geographically. I was touring the house and walked into the living room on the way out, only to find her visiting the same open house.

My parents still own the family home where I grew up, and the family apartment in Manhattan, so I sometimes have nostalgia with some of the people/houses in town who have moved. My friend's house recently came on the market, again, and it's a house that I liked (shingle style) but the property has been reduced to about four acres now, and the "renovations" were not done with sensitivity to the style and vintage of the home. The current asking price is also way over market value, but down about a million from the last time the same family tried to sell it. I toured it with a local broker who knows my family, since she thought she could have a sale with one of us, and the fond memories I had of my friend's large family in that home were there, but many of the "improvements" were not to my taste. I have met the current owners a few times, and I don't know why they bought that house, since they seemed to want a modernist minimalist house, yet purchased a rambling shingle style house. Given how they changed the property, and subdivided it so that the pool is in view of the new McMansion next door, and another house was under construction on the other side of the remaining land, it made me not want to consider the house, though at one time I would have done so.

I did find it interesting to look up places where my grandfathers lived as young men, since both grandmothers lived at home until they were married. With one of them, it gave me a new insight into him, and how he had such a love of a specific area and amenities -- making me imagine him as a young engineer living there. I knew the neighborhood previously, and the address, but when I looked it up, things clicked into place. It was a very interesting experience.