I like talking to older people who have lived in the Bay Area for longer than I have because they remember how different everyday things were just a few decades ago. They know an entirely different Fremont that doesn’t exist except in photos.
Recently, I’ve realized that I have in fact joined “the olds.” I remember enjoying parts of my hometown that have since undergone a transformation.
For example, I used to live near the east side of Lake Elizabeth. When I was a wee ‘90s kid, the area that’s now a golf course was all brush. On summer days, my mom would take me and my brother and we’d just explore around and hide in the tall grass. It felt like a real wilderness.
We didn’t worry about ticks. In this case, I think the golf course is a change for the better.
Our house was close enough that we could hear the trains at night too. There’s still one track near the lake, but I remember another one on the other side of the golf course near Gomes Park. That train was LOUD.
Now the tracks are gone. Once, the tracks and a pipe spanned the river that cuts through the golf course on its way to empty into the lake. The river has widened too and grown wilder. But a stone path on both sides marks where the tracks once were. The trees haven’t yet managed to grow over the gap.
Without the train, I always wonder if at certain times the path leads somewhere else. Either the ghosts of the past still use it, or maybe its neglect left a gap for other things to move in.
Now I’m more conscious of the pictures I take while doing everyday things that don’t seem to matter that much. Someday, maybe sooner than I think, those things that appear stable will change. And if I don’t have a photo, people will just have to take my word that those things existed.
At Halloween, I remember how the material world is more inconstant than we believe. If you stop paying attention, you could find yourself in a different world before you realize it.
