I ended up googling the name of a girl I used to ride the bus with in the early years in elementary school. I didn't like the girl, for our small town she was thought of as a criminal in training, which is why I wanted to see what happened to her. Her name came up in the alumni page of the high school in the town I grew up in. Interested, I looked further and saw that names of many kids I had gone to school with in Elementary school.

I grew up in a very calm, small New England town. I consider it my hometown though when I went back a few years ago I felt no connection with it. It's a fairly wealthy, elitist little burg that thankfully has changed little over the years. It has managed to stay free of all the chain stores or at least allowed less obtrusive versions.

I found the town page and the articles and opinions by those that grew up there or still reside there. One thing seems to be constant; the complaining disguised at humor that each contributor wrote about; who was "New Westport" and who was "Old Westport." Despite the fact that little had changed many people lament how much the town has changed and how outside interests are exploiting the town. I don't doubt that's true but it's to be expected as time passes. It's nothing new and happened to every generation down to the Mayflower setting foot on Plymouth Rock (though that incident was constructed.) Change is difficult to stop, sometimes impossible and groaning about it only shows how stagnant you are becoming. Compared to most of the world, Westport is beautiful. I thought I would hate it when I visited but I find myself missing it.



That's something I see everywhere. Long time residents bemoan the "new blood" coming into an area and ruining it. I heard about it in Memphis and I couldn't not hear about it in South Boston (those fuckers would be happy to see the schools resegrated and the Irish mob running the streets once again. Fuck change.)

USA Today, a shit newspaper only slightly better than the NY Post and the Boston Herald, ran a story about South Boston changing and the old timers bitching about how everything has changed. This comes on the heels of Ben Affleck filming a movie in the neighborhood. Talk about new blood, Affleck was raised in Northern CA and lived in Cambridge, a much more intellectual and costlier area than South Boston. The fact that he's playing up this South Boston image is a joke.
Lots of old duplexes are being bought up and turned into condos. It's the same formula seen in neighborhoods around the country- old time residents, tired of living hand to mouth in the city, take the big payoff to move out and leave their house to developers. Those that can't sell only grumble about yuppies and non-neighborhood types (re: those without a criminal record) "taking over their neighborhood."

Memphis, South Boston and Westport are all vastly different areas with very different people. Which proves some things are the same wherever you go. People cry about losing what they consider their history or what they perceive as their past. I learned this when I went back to see the house I grew up in renovated to twice it's size and the woods I used to play in cut down to make room for more houses. It was the perfect town to grow up in at the right time but that's long over.