"You Can't Go Home Again"

[SteyrAUG]

I think it's saved my life.. or saved me from snapping or doing something counter productive. There's been times when EVERY other thing is going wrong... Shitty Job, Nutbag Wife, etc.... and we head out and kill it for two hours. Huge stress relief.

Best of all, I'm betting it will be some of the greatest moments of your son's life as well. Now that he's gone, some of the fondest memories I have of my father are little things that most would think insignificant at the time.

Watching our favorite sci fi shows (Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, The Night Stalker, In Search Of..., etc.), truly enjoying pizza in a way nobody else could quite relate to, making chocolate malts in the blender and things like that are as important as any of the things he might have given me as a gift. I wish I could trade a few of the "things" for "more time."

He had his faults, failures and regrets but if I could get a "do over" I wouldn't want any other father, I'd only want to help him have fewer failures and regrets. I could live with all his faults.

[TXBK]

I live in the town where I grew up. I moved off and lived other places for a little while, but when it was time for a family it was time to go home. It's funny, but the more things have changed, the more they stay the same. The faces are ever-changing, but the people are a only minute reason why I enjoy living where I consider my home to be. My connection is with the land, and that is what I hold on to. I even bought my one of my grandparent's homes, even though it is a little closer to town than I would rather be. Most of my old friends left and never come back, and considered it to be a twisted place. They had no connection to the land, only the people. I have new and better friends now from my travels. Most of my family is still here too. I still drive by the homes I grew up in from time to time, when I am feeling nostalgic.

Home is where you make it.

[Doc Safari]

My girlfriend lives in a housing development. I was reminded this weekend that her home is a stone's throw from where my grandparents' farm used to be. That's got to be the ultimate epiphany as far as how much things have changed.

[SteyrAUG]

My girlfriend lives in a housing development. I was reminded this weekend that her home is a stone's throw from where my grandparents' farm used to be. That's got to be the ultimate epiphany as far as how much things have changed.

Doesn't take long does it.

In my parents/grandparents town there was a swanky hotel built in 1928 on Main street in the middle of the uptown business district. Even in the 1970s we used to go there Sunday morning for the breakfast buffet and it was still an exclusive address.

By the late 1980s it had become low income housing and by the late 90s was a derelict building. There is currently a renovation project being attempted, we'll see.

[Doc Safari]

Did you ever run into a gun you used to own?

Many years ago a friend of mine ran into an HK91 he used to own. He knew it was his because he hand-painted the camo pattern and it had the heavy bipod mounted at the rear of the handguards. IIRC most were made with the bipod at the front of the handguards or something like that. This was during the 1994 Clinton ban panic when people cleaned out their closets and took everything that might be mistaken for an assault weapon to a gun show for big bucks.

My buddy had plans to take his entire gun collection to the gun show to try to trade for an HK91--ANY HK91. Unfortunately (and I'm NOT making this up!), all of his guns were stolen by his girlfriend's ex-husband the night before the gun show.

So my buddy walked into the show, already discouraged and disillusioned, rationalizing that he probably wouldn't find an HK91 anyway. So there on a table was unmistakeably HIS old HK, and he didn't have anything to trade or buy it with.

He was inconsolable for days.

[Turnkey11]

I left home in Missouri at 18, did my first year of college, the the USMC, reserves, more college, Iraq, and a couple of years living in Springfield, MO. After Iraq I wanted a change of location and career. So I got a job railroading in western South Dakota into Wyoming and haven't looked back.

Haven't been home in over a year, probably won't make it back this year either. I haven't lived closer than 100 miles to where I'm from since I was 18.

Do you ever make it as far east as Capa?

[brickboy240]

Where I grew up (from birth to age 13....I am 49 now) was in north Dallas. Today, the place is a total slum and very run down. Corner stores are either boarded up or check cashing places or ratty pawn shops. It is actually depressing to go back to that part of Dallas. I am also shocked at how developed it is north of this place - wow how Dallas grew! LOL

When I was a kid in the 70s, it was almost like a small town and not part of Dallas or a big city.

My wife grew up in Monroe, LA and when we go back there today, she says it is like going back in time. Oh there are some new stores and other modern things but she says it still has an old small town feel. She is nostalgic about her home town today...mine is depressing and I avoid going there when in Dallas because it is unsettling.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

I won't have to be 56 to notice, the first time I went home after joining the military I was like 22 or 23 with 2-3 tours. All my friends were overweight, needed to shave, and going nowhere. All the girls got married to these losers and got knocked up and stayed fat. They will all die within the same city limits they were born in. This happened in like 5 years, it was completely mind blowing and I haven't been back.

I looked at my family and realized that the further an uncle lived from Buffalo, the better off they were. Now that may have been a Buffalo thing, it may have been an Uncle thing- but I made sure that when I graduated college I didn't go home. I had no job, had been turned down for med school, housing running out at the end of the month- and for some reason I pulled a Spartan "No Retreat" attitude. Ah, youth.

I still live the furthest away from Buffalo.

[Pi3]

The trees got bigger & the houses seemed to have gotten smaller.