MY OLD 'HOOD

WARNING: Boring, flashback to my childhood ahead! Read at your own risk or come back tomorrow! The above Google Earth shot nearly encompasses my entire world for the first few years of my life. The neighborhood, Carriage Lane, is where mom and I lived, with Gram, from when I was just a toddler. The neighborhood entrance is on the left, with a pool and rec area up front. The white square is my Elementary school. Near the center of the photo is the big Bayou that separates the neighborhood.

Here's a closer view of the house where I spent my formative years. The black arrow (which I realize now is itself difficult to see) is pointing to our backyard. I can tell by the covered patio on the back, where we spent many hours on the porch playing.

This is what the house looks like today (well- last week at least). I spent many hours climbing in that big tree that's now been brutally hacked. The are two front windows on the house. The one on the right (near the front door) was my bedroom when Gram lived with us. After mom re-married, Gram bought her own house and I moved into her bedroom.

This is my elementary school, where I attended Kindergarten through 4th grade. Frazier Elementary was a fairly new school when I started there in the 1985, but I can still remember the portable buildings out back to accommodate the extra students.

This is the pool and clubhouse area, with a small park and two tennis courts. I spent thousands of hours at the pool hanging out during the summer and competing on the swim team. It was actually 2 separate pools when we were there- large, family lap pool and a smaller square deep, diving pool. I think, that since the neighborhood was built on a landfill, the ground under the pool continually shifted causing problems with the concrete cracking and leaking on the pool.

Finally, this is a small park near the back of the neighborhood, about a tenth of a mile from my house. I remember riding my bike *ALL* over the neighborhood growing up and spending lots of time in this park. We'd take our big lab Max out to run in the break and I'd sneak down to the railroad track and illegally play on the train cars.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Maybe I'll have some more free time to go take some real ground photos instead of just Google Earth shots.