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I love L..A. I go back to visit every year or two and it feels like home every time. I’m just back from a 5 day trip that included:
~dinner out at a fine French restaurant in Pacific Palisades
~a raucous football party between arch rivals USC and UCLA
~a book club party revolving around Sorority Sisters, with my sorority sisters
~a day long jaunt around the old haunts, the places where I used to live and work
I had no idea where I was half the time. Who knew you could forget so much? I couldn’t remember which freeway to take, and then when I stumbled upon it, I couldn’t remember which exit, so I just picked one that seemed familiar. Then I saw a street name that seemed very familiar and between the two of us, Big D was riding shotgun, we kinda sorta remembered that our first apartment had been on that street. We cruised, rubber-necking, and couldn’t recognize our old apartment building. I think they tore it down and built townhouses. There were a lot of townhouses on that street, and there used to be none at all.
Then I headed North, except Big D told me I was heading South. I actually wanted to go West. Many U-turns later and I was heading in the right direction. We drove by countless Target stores where no Targets had been before. I’m not overstating when I say that there was either a Target or a Starbucks on every other block. I think at one point I was near the old high school where I used to teach, but I couldn’t swear to it. I never did find it. I did find a Target (not hard) and used the bathroom. Thanks, Target!
I did find our old house, the house where my kids were born. It’s ruined. It’s a heap, a prison yard, a bleak landscape of bleakness. It used to be adorable. It sold the day it went on the market; it was that cute.
We also found my parent’s house, the one where we were married. When I took a picture of it, the owner 
popped open that front door so fast . . . after assuring him that I wasn’t casing the joint for a midnight burglary, we ended up talking in the driveway for an hour. Turns out, he’s the same guy who bought the house from my parents! That was fun.
I had no trouble at all finding my old house, the one where I was a little kid. I took pictures of that one as well, and no one seemed to mind. I even found my old elementary school! Big D was impressed at how far I’d had to walk, and in city traffic, too. I was a stalwart child. (Of course, my mom never made me walk in the rain. Stalwart girls have their limits.)
It was a fun day of exploring, of realizing that I’ve forgotten things I thought I knew, forgotten details that used to be such a part of my life that I’d never have expected to have to work to remember them, and a day to acknowledge that there’s no going back, that home doesn’t stay the same. Sometimes the things you remember are all you have and what you forgot was something you were okay with letting go.
51 Comments on “Escape from L.A.”
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I often thought about returning to the first house I remember living in because it has changed so much. When my parents bought it, it had a kitchen, living room, and bedroom. No running water, no bathroom, no bedroom for me. I slept on the couch. My parents had a well dug, a basement dug, and added a living room, and bathroom. The old living room became my bedroom. I actually got to sleep in a real bed. We moved when I was ten. Today that house has an upstairs and I would love to see the inside of the house. I’m sorry you had such a difficult time finding your past. You can’t change change. My high school is being torn down now. It was built in 1921. It was a grand old place with style.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 8:30 am.
Oh, that is so sad about your high school! I love those old buildings and always think they should be saved and rehabbed. They just don’t build like that anymore.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:50 am.
I had that same kind of trip last June. I flew to L.A., met DH there who was doing a project, and drove the company van back. We took the southern route through Arizona and New Mexico. On the way we stopped by Clovis, city of my birth. We drove by my elementary school, the house that I lived in, the house my grandma lived in, and the cemetery where my grandparents are buried. Clovis has changed, but not that much. The tree I used to sit in is dying, but, otherwise, not much has changed there except it grew and spread out. It was surreal going back, and even though I was 6 when we moved, it was nice to finally show DH what I was talking about and show him where I came from.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 9:02 am.
Clovis! My college boyfriend was from Clovis, CA.
What a fun trip, full of memories, but a bit sad to see the changes, especially the dying tree!!
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:51 am.
Amanda,did you live in Clovis, Ca or NM? My two sisters and older brother were adopted by a couple in Clovis, NM any years ago. They owned an upscale gift shop downtown until their deaths. We have gone on Google Earth to see what the town looks like now and it has changed beyond much of her memories. We did find the house she grew up in but the pool is gone now.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 7:01 pm.
The first flat that I lived in was a bit of a shocker. There was spiders inside the laundry, no security grill on the main bedroom window, tiles missing on the floor, no pantry and bugger all bench space. Before I moved out the other flats were tiled everywhere except the bedrooms, a pantry put in along with a decent stove and more cupboards. The laundry was done up along with the bathroom. I lived there for 3 years and wouldn’t mind seeing how it now looks inside.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 9:11 am.
Amazing what you can live in when you have to, isn’t it?
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:54 am.
I always feel like I am ‘home’ when I pull into the driveway at my mom and dad’s, even though I haven’t lived at home in more then 16 years, and I never lived in the house they live in now. I think it’s the smell when I walk in, and all the old furniture that we had when I lived at home, it kind of makes me feel like a kid again.
When I am home(the city I grew up in), I like to drive around and check out old places. Like where I grew up, my old public and high school, and houses my friends used to live in. I don’t find that much has changed, though. There are subtle changes, but they are still the same places I remember as a kid, things just look smaller. It’s funny to see things through older eyes.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 9:24 am.
I know exactly what you mean about the smell and feel of your parent’s house! There is nothing truer.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:56 am.
I don’t know. I’ve travelled all over the US for work. Travelled in Europe, but I keep coming back to the area I grew up in.
I like the hippy dippy granola lovin stalwart farming yuppie community near Woodstock I grew up in.
It’s country enough that I am certainly not living in a city and close enough to movies, shopping theater arts that there is always something to do. If I need a dose of NYC I hop a train and am there in an hour an a half.
Could I move? Yep. I love Newport News or Key Largo and plan in the long term to spend time each year in either place.
Now the Bombshell hasn’t lived here for years and actually needed a map to get home last time. She loves Rhode Island and her happiness is there.
To each their own.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 9:34 am.
Oooh, Pesky, I want to live there, too. But only when its warm. I mean, cooler than here, but warmer than there.
Sigh
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 9:58 am.
Isn’t that the truth? About needing a map AND to each her own.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:57 am.
Weeelllll, as someone who took flight at a young age and couldn’t wait to break the bonds of cows and wheat, and people in boots and hats, I came back when the opportunity presented itself and haven’t looked back. Granted, I am not living on some West Texas ranch like I grew up, I am living in Austin. But still, it’s Texas, and every inch of it is familiar to me. I like that. I like belonging some place, and I definitely belong here, no matter how hellishly hot and Republican it is
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:00 am.
I envy you. I truly do. It’s what I wanted for my kids, to feel deeply rooted to a place. I hope they feel that way.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:58 am.
That’s it, it’s the belonging. You just know when you get there.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 6:50 pm.
I actually bought a book with photos about old Round Rock…about the times when my parents (they were born in 1924) were very young. Some of the pictures even had people I recognized (my mom was actually in one of them–she was in one of the first groups of Dragonettes, our RRHS drill team). My parents knew a LOT of people because Round Rock was so small at that time and a lot of the families that were around when they were growing up just stayed put. In the late 70′s, there was still a local grocery store called Rubio’s, there was still a drug store where you could get an awesome fountain soda, and Adams full service gas station that would let you charge your gas to your account and pay it once per month…and my parents knew all of them by name and would chat.
Round Rock was still fairly small when I was growing up there…only 1 McDonalds.
Now, however, if you drive south on IH35, you can’t tell where the cities are defined anymore…Georgetown blends into RR, which blends into Pflugerville, which blends into Austin, which blends into Buda/Kyle. Then, if you blink, you’ll miss the spot between Buda/Kyle and San Marcos, then New Braunfels and all the small towns before San Antonio, and so on. Seems like the towns are bleeding outwards so the city limits are getting muddled.
My mother would say that she remembered when RR was small enough to have only ONE school–from elementary to high school and all the kids went to the same building. I remember when there was only one high school in RR (although there were two in the school district), now there are at least 5, and I’m sure there are more that I just can’t remember off the top of my head. All of those schools have opened up since I have graduated, and that’s only 24 years ago. That city has grown by leaps and bounds because of the proximity to Austin, the schools, taxes, etc.
The hub grew up in an even smaller city–Hutto. They didn’t have a McDonalds at all, not even a larger grocery store….they had to go to Round Rock or Taylor, or to their little family grocery store in downtown Hutto. That grocery store would have furniture auctions on the second floor of their building to make extra money.
Things have changed so much…sometimes for the better, others not so much.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:04 am.
It’s hard to watch the change, isn’t it? It’s not that the change is necessarily bad, but it’s tough to see things change so much, especially when we liked it the way it was.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 11:03 am.
“Sometimes the things you remember are all you have and what you forgot was something you were okay with letting go.” Beautiful.
I have wrote two different things in response to your blog, and erased them both. Apparently I am having issues with the topic of “home.” Luckily my family doesn’t read this! So I am going to move along. Have a good day!
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:12 am.
Oh, Kelly! I think we all have issues with “home.” Hugs to you.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 11:04 am.
Sounds like a great trip! All of the places I lived in as a child are still there, though more run down than when I lived there. My mom still lives in the house where I grew up. Both my kids were born in the house we still live in.
Snore . . .
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:47 am.
I think that’s wonderful!! I hope my kids can say the same thing, minus the snore part.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 11:05 am.
How wonderful that you take the time to go home. I wonder what “Target and Starbucks on every other block” says about our species?
Because three of our parents are still alive and living in the area we grew up in, we still go home often. But neither of our parents live in the house that we grew up in so we take the back roads past the “old house”.
For me, just driving North on I39/51 and seeing the “Wisconsin Welcomes You” sign means I am home. With the holidays now I am missing home more than ever. Thanks for the bittersweet blog.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 11:37 am.
Bittersweet sometimes feels just right. Have fun in Wisconsin soon!
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:39 pm.
Going to see the house my family had when I was born was a very cool experience. My memories (we left when I was 4) were so selective– impressions more than memories. Of a wall, or the street, or part of the kitchen. To see the house now was a revelation. And everything was so much smaller now, lol.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 11:38 am.
How fun that you got to see it! My parents moved so often that to see all the houses where I lived as a child would take some doing.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:40 pm.
Though I migrated from NorCal to SoCal, my mom still lives in the house I grew up in. The elementary school (K-4) is still there (we used to walk home for lunch) and the middle school. But they tore down my high school. It had an awesome view of San Francisco Bay. They kept the tennis courts (best awesome view) and sold off the land for lovely homes. I think all of us that went to that high school feel unrooted! But I still enjoy going home and sleeping in my childhood bed.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:12 pm.
How lovely! What a great location for high school memories.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:41 pm.
I recently went back to the tiny town where I spent my youngest years, Telluride. In some ways there were many things I remembered and many things I didn’t. I saw the house we lived in right before we left, it looked much the same – though the current owners have a teepee in the back yard. I was mad jealous – what kid can’t have fun in a teepee?!?
When I go back to Denver, almost nothing looks familiar to me.
Some of Dallas/Ft Worth does, but so much has changed that I got lost…. a lot. I did go and see the house where I lived for years and while it looked almost the same, it didn’t feel like I was going back home. If that makes sense at all.
It is interesting to go back sometimes, but I tend to view “home” as where I am currently. (ok, except for right now. lol)
So glad you had a lovely trip with your sorority sisters.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:15 pm.
It’s always a great time when I go to Los Angeles and see the girls. Always. They are the definition of a good time.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:42 pm.
I ADORE L.A. I’ve been there twice, and I wanted to go so badly next year, but I won’t be able to because my school vacations will be messed up
It’s probably my favorite US city. I love the whole atmosphere around it. I love just walking around it and pretending I’m someone else (to myself 
). I love walking around it and seeing some of my characters everywhere. Ahhh, I want it back 
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:24 pm.
I love the quality of light in L.A. and the scent of the air. It’s magical to me. I also love to drive there! I think L.A. drivers are the best on the planet. Aggressive, fast, and courteous.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:44 pm.
When I went back to the home where I was raised, I was surprised to find it so much smaller than I remembered. I’ve heard since that things loom large when we are small…only to be realistically normal-sized when we seem the same things as adults. I guess that’s natural. Still, it does bring back the memories of when we were small…
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:25 pm.
I wonder if I’d been in the houses if they would have seemed smaller to me? As it was, they looked the way I expected.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:45 pm.
On the issue of “Home”, I’m born and lived here my whole life, except for the five months I lived in the US. Kinda hard to miss it. It’s good to have a place you know well. I like it here for the most part. I really love the food and the malls
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:26 pm.
A solid sense of home is wonderful! I think we all wish for that.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 12:46 pm.
Grew up in Thousand Oaks, California. I go back every year and stay with my high school BFF…Our 30th high school reunion was last August.
My kids started applying for college and I was crushed when neither one wanted to apply to USC or UCLA or Pepperdine! My daughter said: Mom, California is your home, but Texas is ours. *Can someone please remove the knife from between my shoulder blades?
This past summer I did fall out of love a little with my old home town due to all the traffic. I’ve started quietly proclaiming I’m from Texas ever since my return..It’s only taken me 12+ years of living down here to make this place feel like home.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 1:02 pm.
The main reason I left So. Cal. was because of the traffic. It just wears at you eventually.
Now you’re a Texan! That’s wonderful. Proud, noble heritage to claim.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 1:52 pm.
In summer 2011 I was in my Montana hometown for my 20 year reunion, and it was the first time I had been back since 1996. None of my family lives there anymore, so there’s really no reason to be visiting. While much of it was the same, there were a few things that were different. The house that I grew up in was a different color (beige not dove grey). I was happy to see that my great-great grandaunt’s (I think that’s right, she was my grandma’s aunt) lilacs were still at the house. They were outside my bedroom window. My mom had transplanted the lilacs, rosebushes, and larkspur when my gggrandaunt passed away in the early 80s. Sadly, the rosebushes and larkspur were gone. Growing up the larkspur were on the back fence en masse in the alley and so beautiful with the whites, pinks, and purples.
With a declining population one of the two elementary schools was closed. I went to that school every year, except 4th, when they were using it as the middle school, while a new high school was being built. My elementary school has been re-opened as a community learning center, where they have a preschool for children with IEPs and a Breakfast Club and Aftercare program for children.
While we were there, my LA girl said to me, ‘Mom, I need to go to Target.’ When I informed her that we’d have to drive 2.5 hours to go to Target, she started naming all these other stores that she needed to go to, and I had to tell her that there were none in my hometown with a population of 2200. She was shocked, lol.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 1:20 pm.
LOL That’s so funny. I’m sorry that your town is collapsing in size–that’s never fun to see. I don’t have family in either of my two hometowns so I’m like you—there’s no real push to go. Still, I do like to go.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 3:54 pm.
The two houses my parents had while I was growing up – they seem so small and now I wouldn’t even drive around the neighborhood. They both used to have amazing gardens with trees, flowers, grapes even – all overrun and destroyed now. I am lucky that with my grandmother (who raised me for most of my life) built her house when I was 2 and has lived there ever since. I love walking through the door smelling the unique smell of her house – it is HOME. I can walk the property and enjoy the memories of fishing in the pond, of being a damsel in the gazebo and watch my children make their own memories.
Also I have one of those crazy memories that even if I go somewhere on vacation and travel along a road I can find it even years later – comes in handy.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 1:49 pm.
Landscaping doesn’t last forever, that’s for sure. It’s hard to see trees and shrubs go.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 3:55 pm.
My parents live in the house we moved to when I was 11, which was around the corner from the house we moved to when I was 3, which was around the corner from the apartment we lived in when I was born. All these places are the town next to the one my parent grew up in which is where my mom’s family has lived since before the revolutionary war. Getting a picture here? Despite having some Hungarian blood, I’m guessing wandering Gypsy isn’t in mix.
You’ll want to keep your car door unlocked if you are subjected to my hometown tour down our main street. It’s a snoozefest.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 3:07 pm.
Aww Freshechelle,
That sounds picture perfect. I moved 16 times by the time I hit 8th grade and finally got to stay put till I graduated. I always envied the kids in schools where I moved who always had family and friends in their lives and they didn’t have to make new ones every few months.
I’ve bet you’ve got great memories and strong roots. That’s a real blessing!
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 3:29 pm.
That is so nice! What a strong connection you have.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 3:56 pm.
When I went to Tulsa, my hometown, for a visit in October, my high school sweetheart, whom I’d not seen in 47 years, took me around to all my old neighborhoods. The houses were standing pretty much as I remember them. Of course, the trees were taller, but the neighborhoods looked the same. We didn’t cover everything, just the ones I lived in from second grade on up, but I was glad we made the journey down memory lane. We also hit some eating places that were every bit as good as they were before. Chicken fried steak that would melt in your mouth at a restaurant owned by the sons of the family that ran it when I lived in town. Another place was a greasy spoon hamburger joint where they cooked the burgers to order right behind the counter. They were delicious. Their carryout business is amazing.
I would have a difficult time getting around now because the expressway system has expanded so much since I left in 1971. I’m sure I could learn, though, because it’s laid out in a reasonable manner.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 4:21 pm.
How fun to have a guide! Isn’t it nice that things have stayed the same? I love that.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 5:34 pm.
Where I grew up, Bessemer, I lived there for 27 years, then moved to Gardendale(20 miles away), and lived there for 20 years and I am now living in McCalla(3+ years now) and I am ~ 10 minutes away from city that I grew up in. I am very fortunate that I live 5 minutes from my 3 sisters and 7 minutes from my mom. I have no plans to move ever again, so I am where I want to be. And yes, Bessemer changed some over the 20 years that I lived in Gardendale.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 5:15 pm.
But, wow, you’ve lived in the same area your whole life! I find that awe-inspiring.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 5:35 pm.
I loved living in LA and if I hadn’t thought my sons would thrive better elsewhere I would never have left.My last apartment was a three bedroom on the second floor of a four unit building, I kept my windows open for most of the year and got a wonderful ocean breeze even though I was about two miles from the beach. I lived three blocks from the book store I worked in, around the corner from Von’s market, and I could walk or drive less than half a mile for any type of restaurant I wanted. Before we moved inland I lived on Venice Beach before it became so clogged with tourists the locals stayed home. Our first apt on the beach cost us $135.00 a month, last I heard that same place is going for $2400.00; it’s a one bedroom for crying out load!
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 7:33 pm.
Oh, wow, did you have the life! Los Angeles is a wonderful place in so many ways, but I’m like you; I moved to give my kids a better life than the one they would have had in Los Angeles. It was the right move, I think. But I still miss L.A. in so many ways.
Not the traffic, not the cost of housing, not the cost of insurance though.
Posted on November 28, 2012 at 10:35 pm.
I missed this yesterday! I love LA, but only in neighborhoods. As a whole, it’s so huge and hard to navigate. In neighborhoods, it is adorable. One of my favorite spots in any city is the Venice canals–it’s just so incredibly charming.
Posted on November 29, 2012 at 7:19 pm.