A trip down memory lane. . .

[velvetpage]

Or at least, to St. Catharines.

My dad grew up in St. Catharines. I was born there. When I was eleven, the family moved back there for one year - three months living with my grandmother, then nine in a house we rented.

Well, my dad, my sister, Elizabeth and myself went to see my Aunt Jeanne this evening. Since we arrived in the city twenty minutes before Aunt Jeanne got off work, Dad decided to drive around a bit. We saw the house on Woodland Ave. where he lived as a teenager; the spot, now occupied by an extension on the hospital, where his house was when he was a child; Nana's house, that we lived in for one summer, the only place other than the retirement home that we ever remember her living; the house on Albert St. where we lived when I was born; the house on Princeway Dr. where we lived when I was eleven; the place where Foster Wheeler, the boiler factory, used to be; the bridge that the QEW used to go across, before the skyway was built to go over the Welland Canal; the canal itself, with only one midsize ship in it, and no ships at all in the dry dock that used to be the busiest and biggest shipyard on the St. Lawrence Seaway; the school I used to go to, which has apparently been sold to the francophone board, thereby dealing the death blow to my occasional musings about old teachers who would be near retirement by now (in fact, most of them are long since gone, since that was nineteen years ago now) and the rather sad-looking downtown, with its value stores and empty storefronts and a few - a very few - stores from generations past. One such was Dunn's Flower Shop, owned by one of the oldest families to settle on the Twelve Mile Creek, and the family that had the distinction of owning the first real bathtub in town.

We did not, however, drive by the place where the zipper was invented.

It was a nice evening, and interesting to see the changes to a place that was so permanently peripheral to most of my childhood.

Comments

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I've taken to using GoogleEarth and GoogleMaps to peek in at the houses I lived in growing up.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I lived in a lot of houses growing up, and I don't remember the addresses of many of them, or their locations in cities. I may try this at some point, though.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

The farther back I go, the easier it is for me to remember addresses. Places I lived in college? Nada. The exact street address of the big house in Fountain Valley, that I lived in from '72 to '78? I can rattle that off with no trouble.

I couldn't remember the street address of the house I lived in in kindergarten, but I did remember the street name, the name of my elementary school, and their relative locations, so I Googled the school, plugged THAT into Google Earth, and backtracked up the street.

The house looks different -- it had a very distinctive layout, with a big deck built above the garage. It wouldn't surprise me at all if subsequent residents remodeled it -- that was a terrible design, prone to leaks. The school, however, looks EXACTLY the way I remember it, with a few extra trailer-type classroom buildings added. I could point out the classroom I had in First Grade. It was scary.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I remember many of my addresses, now that I come to think of it. I could probably find the house in Truro, Nova Scotia, based on the fact that it was just up the hill from a huge railway crossing - about ten lines, IIRC. I remember the address in Winnipeg because, when we moved to Toronto, there was a highway with the same number, and I was all tickled pink with that. I think I remember every address from there on. It helps that I lived at home during University. I know exactly where that house is - it's only fifteen minutes' drive from here.