Can you go home again?

[lloyd3]

Lots of us are transplants from where we grew up. If you grew up in a big city (especially on one of the coasts), where you grew up might not even exist anymore (due to re-development or perhaps first development?).  If, however, you happened to get started in one of this country's more-rural areas, odds are pretty good that many of your old haunts are still there.  I've been gone from my ancestral home for over 30-years now. In my time away, very little seems to have changed. There has been some growth in the sense that a few new homes exist in areas there were previously wooded or open fields. But, as far the towns and cities of my youth, things seem to have gone backwards a bit. Many of the heavy industries that drove most of the real jobs in the area are now gone, and they really haven't been replaced. When I go back to visit friends or family, things seem fairly tough there. Folks just seem to "get by". 

I would love to transport my old Dodge back there someday and drive a few of my favorite roads again. I have no illusions about recapturing my "youth". It's far too-late for that now. Many of the folks I grew up with are long-gone as well or worse(!)  Part of it would be very fun, and some of it would be bittersweet. I don't have any desire to do anything foolish with the car (maybe even taking it there is foolish?) but I'm wondering how something like that might go?  Have any of you folks ever tried it? 

[ws23rt]

We can get some sense of the places from our past by using google earth. I found a house I lived in when I was7-10 years old. Still there
Another place I did visit (Monterey Cal.) is a place I lived before I was of driving age so outside of a few miles radius it was new to me.
It's fun to see these places and how they changed or not.

[twodko]

Nothing wrong with walking paths once traveled. You already know
you can't go back.....can't recapture the day but you can relish what once was.
It was and is a part of you. You'll never know until you go right?
Do it now while you can.

[ws23rt]

I was working on my long driveway some years back and a car pulled in. I met an old gentleman that was passing through looking at where he grew up. He recalled my place as being a place he remembered from his house (a few hundred yards away and long gone to commercial use). We had a good chat and he was thankful that I invited him to walk around and hear his remembering.
Seeing these places from our past is not necessarily reliving the past but more like a reunion.

[Road Dog]

I took my old Dodge back home and run the exact roads I raced on 37 years ago. My old stomping grounds hadn't changed much.

[rob1684]

I do revisit my old cruising places in the summer time as I still live in the same city. I have the same Charger I used to cruise with but its not the same without the friends I shared the experiences with. I still get to catch up with a few of them at the local cruises however, a few of them  also have their cars of their past and we enjoy getting together a few times a year.

[1974dodgecharger]

makes you wonder if kids now lets say 30 years from now will have or rebuy their cars they had as teens and do the same thing?

I don't know why, but to me it wont happened I highly doubt anyone is gonna say in 2050 hey remember that 2008 dodge charger you had that was fast.....or that 2010 Honda civic with 1.6L and had VTEC in it....

[440]

I couldn't afford to live where I once did before moving to Australia. While it didn't really suit my lifestyle (my need for space) I think it was hands down the best place to live and something I will remember forever. Some of my favorite years for sure.

[myk]

No offense to New Yorker'ers but I would never want to go back to my birthplace in Queens.  Besides, east coast weather is a no-no when it comes to the Charger.  I do suppose it would be a personal accomplishment to drive the Charger through my old neighborhoods, especially in Pennsylvania where I lived for a few years...

[Road Dog]

We use to go into town and cruise up and down Main Street. We would park in empty lots along the side of Main Street and check other cars out, set up races or whatever. There was a Sonic there we would cruise around as well. Muscle cars were everywhere. The Blue Goose was the only 69 Charger around . I did go to the Sonic while back in town and there were no other old cars. I remarked to my wife that the kids here could be the kids of the kids I cruised with. The younger crowd didn't quite know what to make of the old Dodge.      

[Old Moparz]

No offense to New Yorker'ers but I would never want to go back to my birthplace in Queens.  Besides, east coast weather is a no-no when it comes to the Charger.  I do suppose it would be a personal accomplishment to drive the Charger through my old neighborhoods, especially in Pennsylvania where I lived for a few years...

What part of Queens?

My Dad lived in Ridgewood for about 10 years & I still have a few relatives in Astoria. Can't blame you for not really wanting to go back & I doubt you'll be missing anything. 


My family lived in Manhattan until we moved to NJ when I was 8 years old & cruising in a car where we lived was not an option unless you owned a bus or a taxicab. 

In NJ where I lived, it was a typical suburban town next to other towns that were the same. A few of us would go out cruising around on the main streets & end up at a pizza shop or in someone's driveway with some beer & talk cars. There wasn't ant street racing that I knew of & it was pretty congested so I doubt you could.

I've been back to both places I lived to show my daughter. The 5 story apartment building in NYC hasn't changed since 1971 but I am sure the monthly rent isn't the same $53 my parents were paying back then. The house they had in NJ was bought & renovated & looks so different it's unrecognizable. It did come out fantastic & I'd love to see the inside, but I'm sure I'd creep out the new owners if I showed up & asked. 

[wingcar]

You can never truly go home; yes you can go to that location and perhaps even still see many of the original buildings and maybe even some original businesses from your youth.  But, you will be seeing them through different eyes...the eyes of an adult and not those of a young teenager.  And, that does make all the difference.  I revisited my old cruising location (Whittier, California), but it's just not the same, too much has changed in California and it's now just the location of my memories from the past. 
Today, I am too busy making new memories to go back and try to relive old ones.   And, why spoil the old memories trying to relive them; in my mind they are too good to destroy with present day reality.     

[lloyd3]

Pennsylvania is nothing but hills and valleys where I am from. Most of it was (and still is) rural, with big stands of hardwood trees dominating the landscape. It was the driving experience back there that I enjoyed the most. Traffic was almost non-existent, and the winding roads through the hills and valleys were even more fun while rowing a 4-speed. Some of my best memories are of lush, green, tree lined streets or rural highways where the trees formed a canopy over the road. The sunlight would dapple the windows and the exhaust would echo back at you. I also really liked the narrow canyons formed by the hills and streams that so many of the river towns back there were built within. When you'd drive down the narrow brick and concrete canyon that was Seneca Street in Oil City at night (with a healthy big block!), the lighted displays and their big glass windows in the store fronts on both sides of you would distort as you passed by, and the exhaust sounded like thunder.  I have no doubt that when I went through one of those little burgs late at night, lots of folks were hearing each of my down and then up-shifts (whether they wanted to, or not).

Weather back there would be the biggest challenge, as it seems to rain all the time (early September would be the optimal time to go, as it doesn't seem to be quite as wet then). The roads can also be an issue, with crumbling pavements and bad potholes.  Some of the denizens might be a minor issue as well. When my brother had his '06 Roush Mustang Stage 3 car down from New Hampshire for a visit in Kane, PA (where my in-laws lived a few years ago) it was egged overnight.  Modern paints aren't as vulnerable as they used to be, so no real damage was done, but the message was pretty clear.  I'm hoping an old Mopar would be better received.

[500Jon]

NO CHANCE LOL...

I was born in Chelsea, London, England.(home of the Chelsea Cruise)
Lived for thirty years in Fulham.
Moved out after my Superbee was vandalised and the guy tried to stab me (Poll-tax Riots in London)
Sold my house for £150,000 twenty years ago.(recession in UK).
Now its worth over a MILLION pounds (1.5 million dollars)!

I messed up BIG-TIME!!!
I have kicked myself everyday for over twenty years...

Would I go back?
NOT FOR A MINUTE, London is Hell on Earth for normal Folks...

[ACUDANUT]

I thought sure Ghoste started this thread. lol. No offense my Mopar Friend.

[odcics2]

NO CHANCE LOL...

I was born in Chelsea, London, England.(home of the Chelsea Cruise)
Lived for thirty years in Fulham.
Moved out after my Superbee was vandalised and the guy tried to stab me (Poll-tax Riots in London)
Sold my house for £150,000 twenty years ago.(recession in UK).
Now its worth over a MILLION pounds (1.5 million dollars)!

I messed up BIG-TIME!!!
I have kicked myself everyday for over twenty years...

Would I go back?
NOT FOR A MINUTE, London is Hell on Earth for normal Folks...

EXACTLY what my father-in-law said.  Besides, his house was bombed out during WW2.

[Fitz73Chrgr]

I'm from St. Louis, living in California now.  I do love it out here, but hope to move back someday.

[cdr]

I am still here!!!!   

[Charger440RDN]

If you go back to the place you lived 20 years ago it won't feel that same no matter how many memories you have, even if all the buildings are the same. I went to my 20 year high school reunion in my home town last summer in Urbana, IL.  I drove around town and it felt foreign to me even though I grew up there, it was weird.

[Dino]

I wouldn't want to go back.  I left my home for a reason and here is where I am happy.  Besides it's 4000 miles away; I'll watch a movie from my teenage years if I feel nostalgic, way cheaper!   

[lloyd3]

I was deeply rooted to the part of the world I grew up in (my family had lived there since the Revolutionary War) and my memories of my life there are, by-in-far, positive. It was purely economics that forced my relocation (student loans that needed to be paid). I'm not unhappy with where I ended up, I'm just considering another adventure there with my car.  Frankly, I'm fairly surprised that nobody here seems to have done this before.

[Bandit72]

I actually bought the house I grew up in! I also get to bale a little hay every year on part of the same farm my grandpa owned when I was growing up. Lots and lots of memories but everything has changed so much that no, I don't think you can truly go home again...things change so much right before your eyes and you don't even notice it until you start looking at old pictures or talking to other people about how things used to be. For example, when I was a kid my dad bought a 40' windmill from a neighbor and brought it home and put it up in our yard, we have pictures of the whole process but I was too young to really remember much of any of it, looking at pictures from that day there is a small tree dad planted about 20' north of the windmill, nothing spectacular in the pictures it was about 5-6' tall, today that tree towers over the windmill by about 20' and I've been contemplating cutting it down because you can't even see the windmill anymore from the road!  Guess you could say I didn't make it very far in life