Saturday, January 13, 2007

My Old Stomping Ground

Recently I came across a web site where you could get a satellite photo of just about anywhere in the world where large masses of people reside. After a few minutes of searching the world, I popped in the address of where I grew up and volia! As I looked down “from above,” memories of my younger days came streaming into my mind. There were a lot of memories… some good and some not so good … most of it good however. I located nine areas of my neighbourhood … well… a bit more than my neighbourhood where I grew up. Within these nine areas, I could spend a month’s worth of stories blogging to you but I will refrain from doing so (whew! You say right?)

I will, however, spend a few minutes it telling you about at least one memory from each site I labelled.




A. The church I attended… When we first moved into town we joined the local Catholic church. I became an alter boy there. It was the third church in two countries where I served the priest during mass.
B. Elementary School (Grade 5)… I attended this school for one year. I don’t have too many memories of this school other than when a teacher held a boy out the third floor classroom window by his feet! I played a lot of basketball on the basketball court there. Most of my evenings and weekends were spent there "shooting hoops.”
C. My house for ten years. My parents worked hard to provide a home for us. For that, I will always be extremely grateful!
D. Elementary School (Grades 6 to 8)… I’ll never forget that hot and humid summer day when some of the boys killed a skunk at the back of the school. Unfortunately, the wind carried the stench right through the school!
E. Before the shopping plaza and parking lot were there, it was a secluded field with trails and trees. A lot of great memories there! I won’t go into details just in case my parents ever read this blog!
F. High School… Five years of making great friends, some which I still have. They didn’t have the running track back then but none-the-less, I spent a lot of time running in the fields behind the school.
G. McDonalds Hamburger joint… Opened up while I was living in the area. I was the first one to order a milkshake there. I used to eat two large hamburgers, a fry and a drink each time I was there. Nowadays… I am much too old for that!
H. Sports Park… Here, I played a lot of baseball and ice hockey. Just along the bottom edge of the park was a bowling alley… Hung out there every once in awhile.
I. Two large stores… A hardware store and a grocery store. My first bike was stolen from the hardware store. I got my head stuck in a turnstile in the grocery store… right in front of a bazillion people! The maintenance guy had to dismantle the whole thing just to release me. My mother was not impresses and neither was the store manager!

Okay… there you have it! A brief glimpse of my life as a kid. Every once in awhile I drive down in that area and relive a lot of my memories. Our experiences that we survived through in childhood make us who we are today. Sure, there were a lot of heartaches but there was also a lot of laughter as well.

I would encourage you to check out Google Earth and see where you used to live… See what memories you can pull up! I hope that most of them were good!

Cheers!

7 comments:

Michelle said...

Very cool!

I was an army brat and moved around a ton as a kid so I don't have the same kind of experiences. That may have a good bit to do with why I talk to strangers in bank and store lines so easily and why the cyber~world has never been freaky for me.

But every now and then... I wonder how things might have been if I had had a more settled life. It's good to get a glimpse of that through other people.

Becky Wolfe said...

I could spend hours on Google Earth, searching things all over the world. It is a fascinating site. Cool insight to your old stomping grounds & a bit of memories from your past!

Janice Thomson said...

Really enjoyed this Dave and all the memories it brought back! Thanks for the glimpse into yours. Becky is right: Google Earth IS a fascinating place to spend a few memorable hours at.

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting as usual. I'm afraid Kuala Lumpur has changed a lot in the last two decades. Although the house of my youth is still there (now a photo studio) and so is my school, much else has changed. Most of my childhood playgrounds and pleasant memories unfortunately has been built over with shopping complexes and 5 star hotels.

Dave said...

Hi Just Michelle!,,, Nice to meet you. Though we lived on this Google Map for ten years, I grew up in two differnt countries and two different provinces. I also went to 7 schools in 8 years... Like you, I think that our moving around certainly influened the way I interact today. Take care!

Hi Becky! ... It sure is a facinating sight!

Hi Janice...You are very welcome! :-)

Hi LGS...The house I loved in during the first 6 years of my life made way to a series of apartment buildings so I know what you mean. Take care!

Marie-Hélène Raletz said...

I moved too many times in my younger days to keep track of the various addresses (my father used to be in the army, and we even lived in Morocco when I was around 5). I could check my current abodes :)
Marie

Dave said...

Hi Marie... It seems that a lot of us moved around a lot. I find that interesting. Hope your weekend is going just fine! :-)