Same As It Ever Was

[akirlu]

San Jose. It's at least ten times bigger than when I was growing up. This afternoon I went out joyriding in Mom's Mercedes. Mom's '80s vintage, diesel Mercedes station wagon, thank you very much.

A lot of the old neighborhoods seem much the same. Trackless wastes of suburbia, slightly more varied in color and shape than contemporary ones, but dominated by samey '50s ramblers and sere, shadeless single-storey strip malls with large, weird, ugly-looking rocks glued to the front sides, and weird, truncated awnings in lieu of rooflines. Sometimes the ugly-looking rocks have been painted over, white or beige. Up along Hillsdale, beyond Almaden Expressway, is now a ginormous auto mall that I don't remember being there. On the green hills behind, a necrotic growth of condominiums that I know was not there before. On Hamilton, I passed eBay Park. Okay, that wasn't there before, either. And I don't remember downtown Campbell being all yuppiefied and one-way-only. But the Tower Records where I bought my Vangelis and Split Enz albums is still there, as is the Jack-in-the-Box where I committed unspeakable acts in the back of a Mustang, once. The Shakey's where we used to go to play Asteroids is still serving pizzas. And the 7-11 where we used to go for Slurpees, just around the corner from Hacienda effing Gardens plaza. All the same as it ever was. Other than the fact that now the unprepossessing bungalows with their painted-over concrete lions guarding the end of their brief driveways sell for three quarters of a million dollars.

I can find in me no hint of longing to move back here.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I don't have much longing to live here either, and I actually do. Were employment and local family not a factor, I'd long since have proposed the option of moving back north, approximately where you are.

[numbat.livejournal.com]

There's a certain frisson to be had by visiting places where one use to live, especially if you consider moving away from them an escape. At least that's what I've found when visiting my parents.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

It could be worse -- it could all still be exactly the same which is pretty much what I find when visiting my folks. Not even a hint of a desire to move back there, no. On the other hand, Jordin was offered a job in Palo Alto yesterday. It wouldn't be doing something he wants to do so he isn't going to take it, but moving back to the BA -- oh yes little tugs at the heart.

MKK