IT WAS SO BIG!

Everything in our lives seems to be predicated on how we see things at different ages. For instance, if you return to your old neighborhood, there are things that seem to be different, even though they never changed! Going back to Brooklyn where I was born and played on the sidewalks and streets, the whole scene seems like it was in a time-warped stage production, everything is the same but so much smaller!

I think we remember things in scale, as a 10-year old, the place is big with enough space to entertain you and your friends. Why not, you were smaller then, and with imagination built your world to suit your needs and fantasies.

The school I went to over 60 years ago!

Looking back at some of the places I visited as a child, the school, Grandma's house, the old candy store on the corner that no longer exist, they seem to have taken on a patina of worn out weather beaten and dinginess that comes with age. When you see it again after many years, you ask yourself: "Did it really exist like this?" Surprises never cease to exist.

They say you can't go home again, and maybe that is true, but in the end, you do hold onto those special memories. Maybe if those that were there so many years ago were still alive, they would have helped me in my perspective of what I thought it should look like.

I once went back to my old high school, moving through the halls I discovered I had forgotten some things and realized the perspective was different. My youth was and had a more optimistic point of view, yet the very halls and classrooms I visited seemed strange after 64 years. It seemed darker now and foreign to me. I could still hear the echoes of days gone by and see the ghosts of the past, the teachers, and classmates that no longer existed. It gave me a feeling of an outsider looking in.

I think that what they say is true: "You can't go home again!" Maybe not go home again and still feel like it is home.