August 10, 2025

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

If you live in an area long enough – some decades – and you drive the same roads or walk the same paths, you can in memory visit other times, say when there was less traffic, reduced hustle-bustle; or when you had young children or school friends; or when you were with parents.

Perhaps you walk past a former teacher’s house, maybe the same person who taught your father or mother, and you recall, hopefully with a smile, what that class was like, and then you think back to the school and picture not only yourself there but the parent.

And you marvel, probably with nostalgia, how little changed between those two generations but now, in the decades since your youth, so many scenes have disappeared: the small pond you skated on; the hole in the playground fence that you crawled through, as did your father; the small candy store that once sat with others on the lot where now there is a big-box store.

Growth, which is inevitable though it itself reverses in time, is necessary as each new generation casts its mold and reach and stamp. You cannot be so selfish that you pine for the neighborhood you enjoyed. New scenes are created and, it is hoped, enjoyed. There are new opportunities.

What you can do is to take your own steps on familiar ground, your memories in your pocket. Others will walk too, in their time as well.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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