Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Hidden Costs of Can't Go Home Again

I grew up in what I'm am just realizing now (funny how that works), a kid's paradise. I had animals, property to run around on (and work on which I hated then of course), and an orange grove.

It's gone now. Gone the way of most orchards and the property now hosts Yorba Linda McMansions, which I peek at with Google Satellite views in Google Maps and Google Earth. I truly and very literally can't go home again - it's a weird feeling that many folks share. Yorba Linda now remains as the one place in the world that I absolutely won't go.

And that's fine, but fate has a funny way of twisting the knife just a bit.

Facebook means that I don't have to feel guilty about not attending class reunions. I'm now in far better touch with some of my old pals on a regular basis than any reunion could have done, and this is pretty trippy in that "my world's are colliding" sort of sense I must say.

No, the weird knife bit is that in Yorba Linda of all places, a dog training center with a great reputation has been established. Well that's fine we have world class training here too, but they have taken to hosting classes/seminars from very well known trainers and behaviorists. Trainers that don't come to California that often. So I occasionally get these emails about So-and-So's only California appearance in Yorba Linda. Yeeegh (it's a Tom Lehrer sound that I don't know how to spell.)

Fortunately I have been spared by property values. The sale of my parent's property is funding their retirement. This means that property values all, but guarantee that there won't be any herding facilites founded there and it's not very likely a large agility trial place will appear either. (They have training, but it's not where you would have a trial.) But who knows.

In the meantime I still have to wait for these star trainers to get back to the Bay Area (they do come from time to time). Or I suppose I could go to them even though that's more money. I do make suggestions to the organizers, but there's always something that holds them back.

1 comment:

Elf said...

A friend grew up on a huge acreage in Cupertino where her grandfather grew flowers in big greenhouses, they lived in a huge old farmhouse, and she pretty much had the run of the whole area. Just before I met her, junior high school I think, her granparents retired and sold off the whole property. Developers built, and she & her dad and her grandparents moved into tract homes next door to each other. She's lived there her whole life. I think by now she's mostly gotten over it all being "taken away from her."

I was just telling someone yesterday -- [who? can't remember]-- about my grandparents' farm in upstate new york [oh, I remember, sierra club member] and how it all changed when my grandfather died & grandmother sold the place. My sisters and mom had so many childhood memories-- but the place really wouldn't have been livable without it changing a lot.

Ah, well.