The grumps

Nov. 18th, 2011 09:34 pm
altivo: Wet Altivo (wet altivo)
[personal profile] altivo
I'm having an attack of them. You know, when nothing pleases you and no had better come near you unless they want to be bitten.

Stressful and wasteful day at work, no lunch break at all so no writing got done. I was supposed to go to a house concert with Gary tonight, and I did meet him for dinner as planned but I backed out. I just couldn't face being social and staying up until midnight. I needed to be alone, where I could scream (I haven't) or smash something (I haven't) so I came home. Still in a bad mood, which is very unusual for me. It rarely lasts so long.

In other news, the duck is still laying eggs. She hit number 40, that is 40 days straight of one egg every day, and then we thought she missed a day and started laying again the next day. However, that may not have been the case. Gary found two eggs this morning, number 42 and 43. So we guess she had one hidden under the straw or something and he didn't find it that day. So that's 43 days straight, and heading into the dark of the year. This is one khaki campbell duck who lives up to her breed's reputation as egg layers. I'm going to have to make a sponge cake to use up half a dozen eggs at once, looks like. We have almost two dozen in the fridge and she's laying faster than we can use them.

I got to poking around on Google maps looking for some specific information a couple of days ago and I've kept at it, looking at places where I used to live, etc. They aren't all on street views, but some that are shocked me a bit. The house we lived in from when I was born until I was 9 years old is still there and looks almost the same (though there's some unidentifiable structure in the back yard between house and garage.) The elementary school that my younger brother and I attended though, that was brand new and built the year I started kindergarten, is gone. Demolished. A patch of weeds with a playground and parking lot. You have no idea how old that makes me feel. It was built in 1955 at a cost of $375K and now there's not even a photograph of it left on the internet it seems. The downtown intersection of that city, where the two largest roads crossed, has nothing left that is recognizable. All of it has been demolished and rebuilt to look like every other suburb, with McDonald's and Burger King and strip malls. Eeeeyuck! There used to be a 1500 seat movie theatre there, built in 1942 with a sort of art deco moderne style. A bowling alley with live pin boys instead of robot pinsetters, and a corner drug store with a soda fountain. A variety store in the style of the old Woolworth's, where everything was in little wooden bins and there were ceiling fans. A post office built probably during the depression, with brass bars over the windows. A really old bank building with walls six feet thick and a walk in vault and tellers in real cages. Gone, all gone. Not a trace of it left. I remember it all, but who else does? The abandoned railroad tracks that a friend and I used to walk down on our way to school (I know now that it was a single track siding of the Michigan Central RR, which had already been nearly forgotten when I was a child, eaten up by New York Central which was merged with the Pennsylvania RR which in turn went bankrupt and ended up as part of ConRail. All we knew was that the tracks were coated with rust so no train had been that way in a long time, and we used to walk down the middle between the overgrown saplings and bushes and it was like a tunnel through the foliage. You can still see that straight line on the satellite view, running about five miles and coming to a dead end, as it did, right near the school that isn't there any more. The rails aren't there any more either, but the ghost of both the school and the railroad is clearly visible from the air. One thing that does remain, though, is a broad mainline track of what was once the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton RR. It ran past the school, right next to the playground. There was, of course a tall cyclone fence with barbed wire on top to keep us from getting onto the right of way, but we used to wave to the train crews and they would wave back. It was a busy line serving the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge Plant, and there were always trains. The plant is still there, but I don't know whether it is active or mothballed. The huge switchyard right behind the high school my older brother attended is still there too. Formerly Wabash RR, now operated by Norfolk Southern, it also served the Ford plant. Many of my childhood memories are associated with trains, even seeing live steam locomotives at work on that DT&I line. Hearing steam whistles and later Diesel horns lonely and late at night when I was in bed and the lights were out. They used to scare me and made me imagine huge beasts like dragons fighting or challenging one another in the night. The sound of freights passing a couple of miles from our farm now seem so tame in comparison with what that was like.

Looking at that old neighborhood through Google's bulbous eyes was interesting, but left me with no desire to go back and see it again. There is so little of it left that it hardly seems to be the same place. Like Ray Bradbury's Greentown, Illinois, the town I remember so vividly is gone into the past, beyond reach, populated by ghosts.

No new installment tonight. I'm far enough ahead to skip a night without harm, and I fear what I might do to some poor character in my present mood. Story to resume tomorrow I hope.

Date: 2011-11-19 09:17 am (UTC)
hrrunka: Frowning face from a character sheet by Keihound (kei frown)
From: [personal profile] hrrunka
When I was growing up, "town" meant Nairobi. Most of it is now changed completely, but I don't expect Google street view's got as far as the third world yet.

Date: 2011-11-19 10:37 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] avon_deer
That's why you need me around..to cheer you up when you get the grumps :D

Date: 2011-11-19 06:55 pm (UTC)
baphnedia: (Default)
From: [personal profile] baphnedia
Maybe it's time for Argos to come out and play? Might help some with the grumps. :)

Date: 2011-11-19 09:27 pm (UTC)
ext_238564: (Default)
From: [identity profile] songdogmi.livejournal.com
I can't really recommend going back to old neighborhoods. I've revisited the old neighborhood in Detroit in the last few years, and there are so many empty lots now, including the house where we lived from 1963–1974. Most of the block is nothing but weedy fields. Can't even complain that it was replaced with soulless commercial buildings.

My friend Dave says he used to go to Pep Boys Elementary, because they tore down his school and built an auto parts store.

I hope your Saturday turned out happier than Friday was. It was probably good to put off NaNo work. Would hate to discover the dark side of the conductor (well, prematurely, at least).

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