A couple of weeks ago I went back to my hometown and where my wife and I once lived when we were first married.

This is a picture of the driveway of the lot where our mobile home sat.  The color photo is the one I took while I was down there and the black and white is from 1989.  The driveway that was once a hard sandy clay type material was almost completely covered with grass and weeds.  The little girl in the black and white photo is our oldest daughter who is now 24.  I wish I had thought to bring the original photos so I could position myself aproximately where I stood back then when I took the newer photos.

This is my grandmother's house now. I don't know who owns it.  You can see the differences from the older photo below.  There was a wooden railing on top of the roof, wood siding and trim, a tree line and hedges that stood on the other side of the house.  There was also a house aproximately where the mobile home stands now.  Also, I noticed there was no longer a ditch in front and on both
sides of the house.  It is now filled in with dirt and grass.  It also looks like the original half-moon shaped steps are gone.




 


















Below is a picture of the house where I grew up.  When I was taking pictures of my old neighborhood the man who lives in the house now was suspicious of me and came out to find out what I was doing taking a picture of his house.  I explained to him I grew up there and he became friendly and we talked for a few minutes.  I appreciate his friendliness in allowing me to take pictures of the house but forgot to ask his name.

The tree in front of the house looked like a tall oak tree.  I remembered a small memosa tree in the spot where the oak now stands.  I wasn't sure my memory was correct but later when my sister and I were talking she brought up the fact a memosa tree stood there before.  There used to be a 250 gallon oil drum where the car now stands.  Surprisingly, the house was not sided all the way around and if you look closely, the side by the car is still the original asphalt shingles.  You can't see it in this picture, but in the back there is still a patio my dad built with poured concrete.  When I was 4 or 5 years old, my mom and I were standing on the top step in front of the door and my mom was talking to a friend who was standing 4 feet from the bottom step when a bolt of lightning struck the ground between my mom and I and my mom's friend.

The neighborhood has paved roads now, but then they were all dirt.



This is a picture of the house when I was young.  I am standing there with my sister.  My parents bought the house new for $6,000.00.  Wonder what it costs now?

My wife does this every now and then and it is always fun to participate.  She calls it "blast from the past."  What you do is blog about your past, include a picture and a little story about the picture.

This is my blast from the past.  This picture is of a tomato plant growing below our window.  The story is this:  It was Halloween and as we had been most every year, we went to a church event with them our church has every year during Halloween so the kids could play games, get candy, and be safe.  When we came home there was a tomato smashed against our window.  My wife said that she would clean it off the next day but she forgot.  A couple of days later it rained and washed it off the window.  We forgot about it.


Next spring, as we were getting ready to go to church, I looked down below the window and saw this strange plant.  Isn't that a tomato plant, I asked my wife.  How did that get there?  Finally I realized it was from the tomato that someone had thrown against our window.  That plant grew as tall as half way to the top of the window in the picture, (in the picture it is still a small plant), and gave us huge delicious tomatoes that year.  It was a perfect example of how God turned something meant for harm into something good.

Last year, a stolen vehicle plowed through our yard, hit our car, and smashed our car against our house, directly below that same window.   As I went outside in the dark to survey the damage to our car below that same window, the Lord reminded of how he turns bad things into good.

What a day!  Almost nothing but blue skys.  Only one little cloud I didn't see until after I took the picture.

Camera Information:  Nikon D3000 in manual mode.  All pictures shot using Nikon manual Ais lens 35-70 zoom.  Apertures:  various f/16-f/8@ 1/100 sec.