Nostalgically Remembering 79 Hillcrest Ave.

This is week 14 of the "ABC with the Accidental Tourist Knitter. (oops) :)
The letter is N

Nostalgia

Don't we all get that way sometimes.   I was feeling that way last weekend.   I decided to take a ride to my old home town.   My intention was to have breakfast at the Edison Diner.  We got a little bit of a late start though.  We were both way to hungry to wait so we stopped at a diner in Brick instead.

About an hour later we passed the Edison Diner.

I gave Ross the hometown tour.   This is where I went to grammar school, here is my old high school, and this is the old neighborhood.  This is the house where my friend Cathy lived.  We would meet at this corner and walk to school together.

See that shopping center over there, that used to be a bowling ally - Edison Lanes.    Over there is the Swim Club.   Our family couldn't afford the membership, but I had plenty of friends with guest passes. Now it is a community pool. 

We drove down Hillcrest Ave.  Number 79 is house that I grew up in.   I took a picture of it from the car window. 

See that house across the street?  That family had 13 kids.  And their grandmother also lived with them.  Cookie (her real name was Joy) and I used to  take walks around the block on hot summer nights. 

Ricky lived in the house next door.  He had crush on me.   He used to ask if he could walk me to school.  But you know he was into frogs and snakes and that wasn't my thing.   So mostly I would say no. 

The family two doors down had 7 boys.  I guess they weren't going to give up until they had a girl.  Cindy was number 8.   I wonder if they thought they were on a roll with girls and that's why they had a ninth.  But Kevin, number nine, was their last.

When we moved into our house, there was an empty lot next door.  About a year later a couple bought the lot and built what we thought was a very large home.   We knew they must have been very rich because she drove a pink Cadillac.  It was the only house on the street that had a second level and a patio in the back yard.

Now that house has been sorely neglected.   I have a feeling it is in foreclosure.  And it didn't look as big to me.  In fact the whole street didn't seem to be the way I remembered it.   I guess things do look different when you are a kid. 

After my visit,  I understand what Thomas Wolfe meant when he said  "You Can't Go Home Again".

Do you think that's true?

BTW,  Ross was very patient during the tour.   But he kinda owed me.  I have been on so many tours of his beloved hometown of Nyack that I could probably give that tour too.