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Going Home: Part 4

Going Home Norfolk

This has been a week of discovery. I have been able to do in one week what I had not succeeded in doing in the last 5 years. It is really amazing how one Internet app can accomplish.

But with all the excitement I drifted off my original direction. Well, time to get back on course. I had been looking at a specific neighborhood that I lived in during my very early years. Ordinarily that would not be very interesting. In this case however, it was quite a few years ago and looking at the surrounding neighborhood, these three houses are an island of little change versus the surrounding area.

Looking at my house there was a two story house next door which was built in the 1800's. It is clearly the last of it's kind within miles. I best remember it because of a 10 year girl who lived there named "Patty." I don't think that I ever knew her last name and I probably only remember her because she was so much older than me at the time. I do remember she had a birthday party that I attended and that her room was on the second floor over looking the front yard, which their front yard was far deeper then. They also had a huge tree in the front yard that has been removed to make way for the expansion of Lafayette Blvd.

It just amazes me that this house still stands pretty much unchanged even though it is no doubt lacking the modern layout. It is a typical representation of the row style houses of the era. Narrow in width and long in depth. Which prefectly matches the narrow lot it sits on. In my days on that street, the owners of that house did not own an automobile, even though they were a fairly young family and cars were pretty common. But of course the city bus and taxis were plenitful. The property also lacked any provisions to store a car and parking on the street (Lafayette Blvd) was prohibited.

So after so many years it is amazing to still see this house virtually unchanged.

Posts to come

• Going Home Series (Norfolk) continued


• Going Home Series (Newport News)


• Going Home Series (Alameda)


• Going Home Series (Menriv)


• Going Home Series (North Carolina)


• Proctor Street Move


• North Carolina Trip


• Virtual Trips, Paris, Madrid & Brisbane


• Camp Dodge, Naval Training


• Teaching Postion


• Mini Mac Invades Proctor Street

The Way Back Machine: 1980

Spencer and Mr. Peabody With The Way Back Machine

Spencer: Where to this time Mr. Peabody?

Mr. Peabody: Back to 1980

Looking through some pics I had saved back. I found a couple pics from right after high school. This is probably how my former classmates remember me looking. A little younger and more ambitious, well may not more ambitious than now.

Oh man, I miss my motorcycle. I really put some mileage on that bike. It was so liberating to be able to ride pretty much anywhere for pennies and yes, gasoline was cheaper, but the motorcycle just took so much less in a time when my income was so limited. This thrift meant I could ride pretty much anywhere and be able to afford it. I make considerably more salary now than then and I have a nicer car, but I don't roam the countryside like then. And I miss the freedom that my motorcycle game me. It seems only someone who owned a bike can understand.

Posts to come

• Going Home Series (Norfolk) continued


• Going Home Series (Newport News)


• Going Home Series (Alameda)


• Going Home Series (Menriv)


• Proctor Street Move


• North Carolina Trip


• Virtual Trips, Paris, Madrid & Brisbane


• Camp Dodge, Naval Training


• Teaching Postion


• Mini Mac Invades Proctor Street

Going Home Part 3

Going Home to Olin, North Carolina,

I am going to take a moment out from visiting Norfolk and talk about something along the same lines. As you may remember, a few years ago I was posting about A former teacher which I have always considered a great mentor to me, Pat Gainey. As a matter of fact it was those posts that drew the attention of his daughter and allowed me to learn even more about my mentor. An opportunity which I have been thankful for since. It was Mr Gainey's direction which saved me from problems more than once at the school. And it is that which I have carried over to the kids I deal with now.

Several years ago, around 2005, I believe, I tried to locate members of my graduating class for a second time. Unsuccessfully I was sorry to say.

Yet this week through the miracle of internet one of them reached out to me. While I was certainly no one to notice at school, I do have wonder what this former classmate learned of me compared to what she thought of me then. Taking into effect the years between then and now, we have all grown, changed and changed directions. I look forward to learning about my former classmates.

I must say that it was a good opportunity to speak with a former classmate. And I was glad to hear from her.

So once again I step back in time and post one of the few pictures I have been able to salvage from those times...

Posts to come

• Going Home Series (Norfolk) continued


• Going Home Series (Newport News)


• Going Home Series (Alameda)


• Going Home Series (Menriv)


• Proctor Street Move


• North Carolina Trip


• Virtual Trips, Paris, Madrid & Brisbane


• Camp Dodge, Naval Training


• Teaching Postion


• Mini Mac Invades Proctor Street

Going Home Part 2

Going Home Norfolk

In my last post I talked about going home to my childhood place in Norfolk. As expected it had changed. But as much as it has changed it has also remained the same. First my old house is virtually unchanged. They have added a satellite dish, which wasn't even thought of when I lived there. They have allowed the back yard to be over taken with brush and trees. And of course progress has swooped down. The quaint little two lane road out front has become an ugly four lane monster. This bit of progress has shrank the front yard and destroyed a couple huge old trees.

The interesting thing is that with all the changes on my old street, my house and the houses on both sides have changed little. Yet the rest of blocks around have changed significantly. So why have these three houses not changed.

Another interesting thing. You see cars parked in the driveway next to our old house. That drive way use to go all the way behind the house to an old carriage house. In my time there, people did not park their cars where you could see them. It was considered bad manners to have your car where people walking by could see it. My, how things have changed.

Posts to come

• Going Home Series (Norfolk) continued


• Going Home Series (Newport News)


• Going Home Series (Alameda)


• Going Home Series (Menriv)


• Proctor Street Move


• North Carolina Trip


• Virtual Trips, Paris, Madrid & Brisbane


• Camp Dodge, Naval Training


• Teaching Postion


• Mini Mac Invades Proctor Street

Going Home, Part 1

There is an old saying that you cannot go home again. While the saying seems to refer to a place, it actually refers to a point in time. And in that respect it is accurate. Some years ago I moved from Menriv to North Carolina, not of my choice mind you. In any case I had the chance to go back to Menriv a short time later. Three years to be exact. What I found upon my return was a landscape very different from what I left. A mere 3 years had passed, but it might as well have been a lifetime. You see Menriv had been frozen in my memory at that point when I last saw it. Now keep in mind, that I had lived in Menriv for 3 years and had roamed everywhere. So I knew the place very well. Chalk it up to adolescent curiousity and boredom. Anyway I learned a valuable lesson. You cannot go home, because home is not a place, but a time.

So you would think that I would be prepared when I decided to go back to my early childhood home in Norfolk, Virgnia. I should know that the place has changed. I expected it, but still it was a shock. My former home was still there and as a matter of fact both neighbor houses on either side were still there. Very surprising indeed considering the other changes that happened.

Lafayette blvd has gone from a 2 lane street to 4 lanes and our formerly large front yard is now just a memory. The huge tree I had once fell from as a child was plowed under by concrete. And although I know it is not true, the single story house even seems smaller now.

Posts to come

• Going Home Series (Norfolk) continued


• Going Home Series (Newport News)


• Going Home Series (Alameda)


• Going Home Series (Menriv)


• Proctor Street Move


• North Carolina Trip


• Virtual Trips, Paris, Madrid & Brisbane


• Camp Dodge, Naval Training


• Teaching Postion


• Mini Mac Invades Proctor Street