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Jun. 10th, 2013 04:17 amComics updated - AWFW #234 - http://www.dolari.net/awfw - Andrea makes her 2nd appearance in a billion years. #comic
Jun. 10th, 2013
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Jun. 10th, 2013 04:26 pmI once found a very remote burned out trailer park miles into a remote dirt road that Just Felt Very Wrong. Like "YOU SHOULD LEAVE THIS PLACE RIGHT THIS MINUTE" kind of heebie jeebies. I never went back. It was ploughed over between 1995 and 2002, but I found it on some old imagery. Apparently SOMETHING was there as far back as 1955.
Wonder if the people living on new houses on that old property feel anything...creepy.
http://www.historicaerials.com/aerials.php?scale=2&lon=-98.64641724746102&lat=29.511479256050833&year=1955
Wonder if the people living on new houses on that old property feel anything...creepy.
http://www.historicaerials.com/aerials.php?scale=2&lon=-98.64641724746102&lat=29.511479256050833&year=1955
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Jun. 10th, 2013 06:34 pmAfter a website pointed me over to http://www.historicaerials.com/ which had overhead aerial surverys dating back to the 50s, I spent a LOT of time checking up on some neat little cartographical curiosites.
Stuff like the wierd incredibly squiggly and tiny "Q Ranch Road" in the middle of wide staight road suburbia. Turns out in the 50s it went to a ranch. And the ranchhouse itself still exists, although it's now just an oddly positioned house in the middle of rows and rows of standard houses.
Going back to San Antonio, where I grew up, things got a little more...almost maudlin.
The house I grew up in, which sadly isn't the house my parents have now, was in a relatively new subdivision stuck out in the middle of nowhere in 1984. The school took us into the then-bedroom-community of Leon Valley for my first year of school, but for my second, I began walking to middle and then high school.
On my walks I came across other abandonned subdivisions, but mostly across small ranch houses. They weren't large sprawling estates, more like a few square acres, lots of lawn, and horses out back. One of the joys I had walking to high school in the spring was watching foals playing on a small little field. Then as soon as I got within a mile of home, boom, tight lots, packaged housing. One of the reasons I hung out in the creek floodplain was I didn't have to see those houses and could ignore the march of progress.
When we moved in in 1984, the nearest intersection had a Stop and Go, and that was really it. By then time we left, the northside of San Antonio had boomed, and out little area with it. When we lost the house in 1991, the Stop and Go went away, but replacing it were two gas stations, a strip mall, a supermarket, a bank, and a Chinese place or two. But in general the area still hadn't lost the ranch house charm. But things were going away:
There was an old gate in a fence I'd jump to get home from schooland skirt the very edge of his property line to get home. Once the property owner caught me and gave me a good scolding, and retreated back into his house. Less than a year after graduation, the house was mowed down. Nothing's been put up since 1992, which is surprising as it's prime real estate at a great location. The gate is still there, though, twenty years later. The house with the foals is still there, and so is the stable area, but I haven't seen any horses there in years. During exploring private dirt roads, I stumbled across a subdivision in the making...and then stumbled into the Tezel Ranch. Still being worked while the subdivsion came to destroy it. Many of the ranch houses and open fields have been built on with big gigantic condos and apartment complexes and tract housing. Places I'd explore to "See what's out there" are parking lots.
Looking at those aerial views, turning the clock back to 1986, and even back to 1955, when I was a mere negative 19 years old, really gave me a bit of heartache. All those ranches and nature gone.
I don't plan on living in that past, though. It's nice to visit, but you can't dwell on it. Progress happens. People need places to live, open fields are ripe for building things on. Things Change. And it's not always so bad:
The Tezel Ranch I stumbled on? Still there! They obviously sold a lot of the ranchland around it for the subdivision, but they kept a good number of acres that the subdivision has completely enveloped. I drove by the ranch that used to literally have prancing ponies, and someone was putting out hay for a horse. Near that old house, an ancient (1920s era) subdivison prides itself on "country living in the city" and has maintained that ranchhouse character. They're even still selling lots - something I wouldn't mind having if my Hill Country plan is unattainable. Where my parents live now, which was again on the outskirts in 1991, is still somewhat in the outskirts. On the very edge of a subdivision bounded on three sides by a pre-zoned buffer zone (thanks to a nearby cement factory). No one can build on it, no one can develop it. So the wilderness isn't going anywhere, at least there.
I've gone out of my way to keep current. I keep up with technology, I like popular (preferably alternative) music, and try very hard to move forward with the times. But there's enough behind me now that I can look back and say "I miss those days." I just have to remember not to dwell on them, cause that's when you stop growing.
Home in 2012: http://goo.gl/maps/erWnt
Home in 1986: http://www.historicaerials.com/aerials.php?scale=6&lon=-98.61439220746101&lat=29.53293878123314&year=1986
Home in 1955: http://www.historicaerials.com/aerials.php?scale=6&lon=-98.61439220746101&lat=29.53293878123314&year=1955
Stuff like the wierd incredibly squiggly and tiny "Q Ranch Road" in the middle of wide staight road suburbia. Turns out in the 50s it went to a ranch. And the ranchhouse itself still exists, although it's now just an oddly positioned house in the middle of rows and rows of standard houses.
Going back to San Antonio, where I grew up, things got a little more...almost maudlin.
The house I grew up in, which sadly isn't the house my parents have now, was in a relatively new subdivision stuck out in the middle of nowhere in 1984. The school took us into the then-bedroom-community of Leon Valley for my first year of school, but for my second, I began walking to middle and then high school.
On my walks I came across other abandonned subdivisions, but mostly across small ranch houses. They weren't large sprawling estates, more like a few square acres, lots of lawn, and horses out back. One of the joys I had walking to high school in the spring was watching foals playing on a small little field. Then as soon as I got within a mile of home, boom, tight lots, packaged housing. One of the reasons I hung out in the creek floodplain was I didn't have to see those houses and could ignore the march of progress.
When we moved in in 1984, the nearest intersection had a Stop and Go, and that was really it. By then time we left, the northside of San Antonio had boomed, and out little area with it. When we lost the house in 1991, the Stop and Go went away, but replacing it were two gas stations, a strip mall, a supermarket, a bank, and a Chinese place or two. But in general the area still hadn't lost the ranch house charm. But things were going away:
There was an old gate in a fence I'd jump to get home from schooland skirt the very edge of his property line to get home. Once the property owner caught me and gave me a good scolding, and retreated back into his house. Less than a year after graduation, the house was mowed down. Nothing's been put up since 1992, which is surprising as it's prime real estate at a great location. The gate is still there, though, twenty years later. The house with the foals is still there, and so is the stable area, but I haven't seen any horses there in years. During exploring private dirt roads, I stumbled across a subdivision in the making...and then stumbled into the Tezel Ranch. Still being worked while the subdivsion came to destroy it. Many of the ranch houses and open fields have been built on with big gigantic condos and apartment complexes and tract housing. Places I'd explore to "See what's out there" are parking lots.
Looking at those aerial views, turning the clock back to 1986, and even back to 1955, when I was a mere negative 19 years old, really gave me a bit of heartache. All those ranches and nature gone.
I don't plan on living in that past, though. It's nice to visit, but you can't dwell on it. Progress happens. People need places to live, open fields are ripe for building things on. Things Change. And it's not always so bad:
The Tezel Ranch I stumbled on? Still there! They obviously sold a lot of the ranchland around it for the subdivision, but they kept a good number of acres that the subdivision has completely enveloped. I drove by the ranch that used to literally have prancing ponies, and someone was putting out hay for a horse. Near that old house, an ancient (1920s era) subdivison prides itself on "country living in the city" and has maintained that ranchhouse character. They're even still selling lots - something I wouldn't mind having if my Hill Country plan is unattainable. Where my parents live now, which was again on the outskirts in 1991, is still somewhat in the outskirts. On the very edge of a subdivision bounded on three sides by a pre-zoned buffer zone (thanks to a nearby cement factory). No one can build on it, no one can develop it. So the wilderness isn't going anywhere, at least there.
I've gone out of my way to keep current. I keep up with technology, I like popular (preferably alternative) music, and try very hard to move forward with the times. But there's enough behind me now that I can look back and say "I miss those days." I just have to remember not to dwell on them, cause that's when you stop growing.
Home in 2012: http://goo.gl/maps/erWnt
Home in 1986: http://www.historicaerials.com/aerials.php?scale=6&lon=-98.61439220746101&lat=29.53293878123314&year=1986
Home in 1955: http://www.historicaerials.com/aerials.php?scale=6&lon=-98.61439220746101&lat=29.53293878123314&year=1955