As creepy as Google Street View is, it’s a blast to play with. I was surprised to discover that a Google car had visited my old neighborhood in Anniston. (There still aren’t any high-quality aerial photos.)
I had a good time “driving” around the old neighborhood. It looks small to me, even on a computer monitor. This is the house where I grew up:
The house itself looks essentially as I remember it, though the yard is quite different. In my childhood, it was full of pine trees, and the lawn is much nicer now.
I “drove” on down to the cul-de-sac and took a look around. On my way out, I noticed someone mowing my old yard:
He survives the last little click out of the cul-de-sac:
Then he vanishes–poof!:
Mysterious indeed are the ways of Google.
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WOW!
Whoa! I remember dodging and weaving around the pine trees when we would play tackle football in your front yard. The sidewalk was a safe haven – you could not get tackled there, but everywhere else was free game. We used to use those trees as blockers! Driving down Pecanwood, the houses seem so much smaller to me now! I’ll have to travel down Pecanwood on the Street View now. Thanks for the tip.
Jenny, bigdave: When you check it out, look at the huge hole in the tree line behind the Engers’ old house. You can see a little of that effect in the first photo of our old house, too.
I didn’t notice that until you pointed it out. The trees behind my parents house are gone. Somebody bought that area and cleared the entire land. It looks weird and sad, in a way.
Hey! I was in the ‘hood a couple of years ago and was SHOCKED!! I remember riding bikes and skateboards down Pecanwood Dr thinking it was the STEAPEST MOUNTAIN in the world and just to get to the bottom in one piece was a MIRACLE. And I thought were houses were so big- like CASTLES! um…Not so much. Don’t get me wrong- I LOVED our neighborhood (and you guys definitely had the BEST backyard)…but you really CAN”T go home, can you?
Mirella: Nope; doesn’t work.
I referred to that “everything is small” phenomenon in some blog post or another as being like stomping around in a model train layout.
Hey, you had a cool backyard too. Remember when it rain a lot, and that drainage ditch would be so full and make that cool waterfall?