Google Your Childhood: Posted 3-30-09

Now that my sister has free long distance phone service, she and I periodically indulge in sessions reliving our childhoods. Both of us sit at our computers...she with her headset and I with my speaker phone so that our hands are free...and we both call up Google satellite photos of childhood haunts.

We both entered the address of the house where Sis was born. The house is still there in the same configuration as it was sixty-five years ago, as is the detached garage that dad built. The rabbit hutches are gone, and so is the Chinkapin grove that towered over the old "chug-car," a Hudson Terraplane, that dad dragged out there for us kids to play on and in.

Sis has only vague memories of the place, so I pointed out such things as where she had been standing when dad took the photo of her holding the animal picture book from which she learned how to pronounce "Hi-po-pod-a-mus" and "Ri-naw-so-rus."

Behind her in the photo was a gigantic Cecil Brunner climbing rose bush where my buddies and I made a hideaway. We burrowed into the center and removed all the stickers; from there we could secretly watch the world go by.

Down through our parade of homes, we found them all still standing. The configuration of the neighborhoods had changed substantially. One place we have yet to find is the 1000-acre ranch we lived on when I was in the sixth grade. We can't remember the address or the rural roads used to get there.

We have also checked out the various schools we attended, places we vacationed...even old swimming holes. Each time we go on one of these tours, it brings back fond memories. There have been a few sad ones, but time has softened their impact.

Call a family member or a childhood friend and digitally hike along your personal memory trails. Google your childhood. It's a trip worth taking.