Steel White Table

I used GoogleMaps this morning to give directions to someone out of town. I clicked on “street view” to provide them with a few landmarks and noticed a friend of mine in one of the street level photos. Then I started clicking around and pretty much took a virtual tour of downtown St. John’s, Newfoundland, looking for people I know.

Then I typed in the address of the house I grew up in, in Nova Scotia. I probably haven’t been there in about 20 years. The house is a different colour, the tree in the front yard is big, there’s an oil tank beside the house which I have no memory of but I guess it was always there, the front steps have been expanded into a deck, and the field behind our house is gone. Things have changed.

Then I took a tour of my old neighbourhood, checking out places my friends used to live, going up streets where fields and woods used to be. It was a strange trip.