Old Haunts

Pictured above is an aerial photo I took of the grocery store I was working at in 1977. I’m in the process of digitizing a large collection of my old photos, and it’s one that resurfaced. A friend of mine was a private pilot, and on one of our flights we flew over the location.

Here’s the location today, courtesy of Google Earth.

It’s just a little different. There are a few things which have remained the same. Easiest to note is the building in the lower right. In 1977 it housed a restaurant, today I’m not sure. Simiilarly a building in the upper left remains. In 1977 it was a fish-and-chips shop. Lo and behold, it still is!

Now, many people look at the difference and begin grumbling about change and progress and crowding and “the good old days.” I get that. It’s a stark difference. Mixed-use (residential on top of street-level commercial) is the style of the day, as is the boxey look of the buildings that have taken the place of the grocery store and mini strip mall.

Here’s the thing: there are people living there now. There are families being raised, students being students, people living their lives in this housing. There are new stores selling things, and even a Starbucks that sits almost directly where my workplace once was (which seems somehow fitting).

For all of these people these are “the good old days”. Some 50 years from now they might look at the recent photo and reminsce that they used to work there, or live there, or had sigificant moments in their lives there. And everything will have changed, in one way or another, making them as wistful then as you and I are now, looking at the then-and-now photos.

Everything changes. Everything. No exceptions. Some change happens quickly, some not so much. But change happens.

I’m not a geeky 20 year old anymore, and the place(s) that I once worked or otherwise spent my time are either long gone, or very, very different.

I recently discovered aerial photos of where I live today. For decades it was pasture land & woods. Then a street appeared. And then houses, including the one I’m sitting in as I write this.

Change happens. Not only are we all responsible for it, it’s a necessary part of the human condition.

This is the nature of things.

I’m glad I have a photo to remember my grocery store past, but I’m not at all upset that things change. (Though I might have preferred different architecture. )