The "old home place." Much has changed; you could never see this much of the place before, with a big magnolia tree in front of the door, and an unpruned spruce tree by the street that would have blocked this view as well.

The new owners have also refurbished and redecorated; once again, memories diverge. The carport is much as it was, but from this angle the house is almost hard to recognize.

I have mixed feelings about my old home. I'm glad I left. I'm glad it's still there. My old room was in the middle of the house (it used to have a window to a porch, but the porch got closed in even before the room was mine). No wonder people sometimes think I'm a mole; I grew up in the dark. Literally!

My sister's home for several years while I was growing up. It's two houses away from where I lived (above), so it was easy to get there, and safe. There used to be a huge elm tree on the corner, and a ditch along the side; it looked much more comfortable with that tree.

Memories here of a young, well-mannered collie and an old Pekinese; playing with my nephew and niece; piano lessons; good food; love. I don't remember my mother being in this house much; I think that was good, too.

Lake Atalanta (yes, that's spelled correctly), one of the major features of home back when it was a small town and I was small, too. Lake Atalanta was home to picnic grounds, swimming, and (not least) Cactus Clark's Lakeside Restaurant.

It was a small lake, and it felt smaller after the Corps of Engineers built Beaver Dam. But Lake Atalanta was familiar, comfortable, a place that you could know in its entirety. Too small for speedboats, it was always quiet. It was nice to see that some things hadn't changed much.

The road around Lake Atalanta. It's about a mile and a half around the lake, nice for walks, nice and hilly for runs. The road back up into town was a killer, too, after running about 4 miles down to the lake and around it. You got to know every gully, every slope, every tree, every little spring that kept washing away more of the road. More of the road is paved now, but this is one time when paving hasn't really changed things as much as it does so often.

Walnut Street, the town's main street in the old days, but now a little off the beaten track as the town has grown away to the west. They haven't paved over the old bricks, and some of the stores haven't changed, either; Shofner's printing and office supplies is still right there on the right.

The back door to my father's old office, where he practiced medicine the old way and still made house calls. It's a used book store now.

The old post office, which became a library, and is now on its way to becoming something else.