Context, I grew up in a suburb of a dying rust belt steel town .
Since I only live 15 miles south of the neighborhood I grew up in, yes, and it's always nice to drive around when I paint nearby houses, restaurants, or stores.
This memory is very fresh because I drove around this early November.
It's amazing looking at all of the houses. Jogging out forgotten memories of where your friends lived , and where you used to play, or got your first kiss, or that time you got in trouble but it really doesn't matter anymore.
All the houses were built between the late 60s and late 70s, and for the era the nicest neighborhood in town. Now that neighborhood has had some major demographic changes, but if anything it looks a little better
. People that have moved away always ask me, and I surprise them . Better.
The trees all grew taller and more leafy. Original houses maintained, landscapes updated. And the neighbor kids were doing the same things that we used to do only with cooler toys.
Sometimes it's fun to get a big ol shot of good sentimentalism. But there's a lot of other stores, baseball fields, and neighborhoods that have gotten dangerous + ratty, so I begrudgingly accept that reality.
But my neighborhood is still a great place to grow up in.