(This was one I thought I had managed to accidently delete the other day, turned out there was a saved draft, LOL. Man, was I pissed when I thought I'd deleted it. Glad I decided to look to make sure it wasn't gone).

Was talking to some folks up at work today, who were all pretty much younger than my handcuffs, about my career and where I'd come from. My having grown up an Army Brat came up and caused me to reflect on my upbringing a little bit. So once I got home I started looking at Google Earth for the locations we'd lived while I was growing up.

It is amazing how many of them are gone, just gone. Bases closed, old housing areas razed to the ground, schools, commissaries, libraries, movie theaters, all just gone. For some reason one of those that kind of got to me the most was the fact the apartment buildings where we lived in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, had all been completely demolished in a four block area. These were long blocky kind of buildings, with three stories, with three stairwells with six apartments off each stairwell. A basement and an attic type area rounded it out. You could go in one of the stairwells at one end of the building, and walk all the way to the other end of the building through the basement. There were small storage spaces for each apartment down there and plenty of room to keep kids interested if the weather outside prevented play.

I'd seen over the years, whenever Google Earth updated their pictures, that steady progress was being made in the area where our old buildings were, toward some kind of urban renewal project of some kind, but only tonight did I see where all the buildings were gone. I can see where the old officer family quarters are still there. They were really nice buildings that, although pretty much the same layout, were larger and more luxurious than the enlisted buildings in which we lived. One advantage that first year was the school was right there at the end of the block, lol. The next year we had to be bused across town to the high school which was the old Army Hospital they had converted once they built the new hospital.

Anyway, it's just another example of places where I grew up being done away with. Rose Barracks, the base there in Bad Kreuznach, was closed a few years ago and they sold off all the old housing, thus the changes. The base we lived at in Highlands, New Jersey went the same way, and the old housing area is completely bare now, no homes at all, and the base is now a park. Sweetwater, Texas was much the same way. The old Army base there that supported the Nike missile systems meant to defend the ballistic missile fields all around Abilene, is gone, and the old housing area, called "Avenger Village", was still there the last time I went by a couple of years ago, but was closed down and fenced off, all the buildings inside the fence looking decidedly barren, and so tiny. Funny how that works.

Ah, well, such is life. They say you can never go home again, which would be tough for me anyway since I never really had a "home town" to go back to. I guess that's why I adopted Eminence, Missouri the way I have, so I can at least pretend I have somewhere.

Mac