But it's still sad.
I'm finally starting to organize my photos using MacOS's Photos application. For as long as I've been an Apple user, I've eschewed using it, much preferring the year/month folder stricture I've used in Adobe's Bridge (and more recently in XnView). But a few weeks ago I was trying to locate a specific image and could not for the life of me locate it.
I kept thinking I could've put my hands on it almost immediately if I had organized my photos by year and then by general subject…and the proverbial light bulb went off. Photos! Photos can do that. So, following the methods described in this video, I started importing my photos, going from 2023 backward.
I ran across several photos of the house my family lived in for my grade/middle school years, and out of curiosity—instead of actually driving over to the place—I went on Google maps and street view and saw what it was looking like these days.
As I said, it was sad—especially to see the one-epic Australian Bottle Tree that had graced the front yard from the time we moved into the newly-finished home in 1963 reduced to the 60 year old husk it had become.
Over the years, both my sister and I have fantasized about buying the house and returning it to its former glory (or gutting it to the studs and updating it to 21st century sensibilities like have been done with other houses in the neighborhood). But it's just a pipe dream, and with the area currently in a downward spiral, it will remain just that.
The house still pops into my dreams now and then, taking place mostly at night, and mostly involving being invited in by the current owners to see what's been done to the place.