Derek Palm, a contributor to Black and White Like You and Me, took a trip down memory lane last week with his younger brother. They drove by many of their former homes and schools and actually were invited into one of them. Derek reports that the home that they were allowed to enter still had many of the furnishings that his Mother had decorated the house with including a chandelier and some wall hangings. That home, however, was the exception and not the rule. Two of his old homes were gone including the apartment building where he played horseshoes next to. That’s right, gone, torn down with only trees in their places to show how long ago they had been demolished. One of his old schools was a condemned building with overgrown landscape.
Most of us have taken this trip down memory lane as Derek and his brother did. If you haven’t, get out there and do it. What memories get conjured up by such a trip! Maybe some of you have gone back to your old schools perhaps for a reunion. Did you notice how small some things really were? How low the drinking fountains and the desks were? I know when I went back to St. Catherine’s playground where I spent countless hours playing baseball and other activities that I could not believe how small the playground truly was. There was a fence in left field that seemed such a long way that we rarely could hit one over.
Looking at these past residences makes us realize how far life has taken us. Many of us have come from humble roots, living in Projects, four family flats, or worn out homes. Derek said that on one of the blocks that he grew up on only one house remained where there had been at least forty homes. One wonders what the resident of that one home thinks as the neighborhood disappeared. It seems odd or even sad that many of our childhood homes, schools, and stores are gone. I hope this blog again makes you pause your life and reflect on where you have been and to realize that life goes on. How many of us are like that lone resident in a ghost town of a neighborhood holding on to the past? Derek’s trip down memory lane certainly jogs a lot of memories but also warns us of the evaporation of the past.
“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a great example of the fleeting of life and what really matters. The poem, written in 1818, describes an encounter with the ruins of Ozymandias’ statue found in the desert. The key to the poem was the inscription, “Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair.” Sounds intimidating, right? Not so fast, the next line is, “Nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck. . .”
Of course not all of the past has decayed and there are many childhood places that have improved or are still in operation. When was the last time you went to Belle Isle? Derek says that on his memory trip he went to that island in the Detroit River. He claims it was wonderful and it brought back a lot of childhood memories. So again, get out there, reflect, and appreciate where life has brought you.
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 – 1822
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
