The other day I had the urge to look upon my childhood home. Now, that home is in another state that happens to be located on the far side of the North American continent from where I currently reside. This being the 21st century those things were not insurmountable problems. What was more of a problem was that I had no idea of the address.

After consulting with my brothers and sisters, they were able to give me the data I needed in order to not only find it on google maps, but see it through the google map street view function.

That is the home I lived in until I was about 10 years old. It’s smaller than I recalled, but then again I was much smaller. I had a room on the second floor of the far side of the house from where the camera is in this photo. I can still recall, very vividly, bats fluttering outside my window as they chased down flying insects on warm summer evenings.

Gone, it appears, are the plots of land for pigs or growing vegetables, but the hours, the tree out front are all from my childhood, before the death of my father and my relocation to Florida.

In many way this simply country locale has always felt more like home to me than Florida, where I lived until I was 19, escaping courtesy of the United States Navy. I have not laid eyes on this old home, in picture or in real life, until the google search.

You can never go home, and that is not my life and it cannot be, but I can’t help but occasionally miss this place.