“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” — Harold Wilson
The looks nothing like the 25th Street I was first introduced to in the early 1980s. -- Photo by Pat Bean
*Travels With Maggie
Some say you can’t go home again. That of course is not true. What you can’t do is go home and find things exactly how you left then
For example, on March 31 of this year, I blogged about returning to my grandmother’s rural home on the outskirts of Dallas, where I lived as a young child. I found the small two-bedroom home condemned, the gardenia bushes outside her front door no longer there and another dilapidated house where her garden used to be.
It was exactly the opposite in Ogden, where I lived for 23 years before retiring seven years ago. I’ve returned yearly since and every time things have changed upward.
The downtown site where a mall was torn down, and which remained obscenely vacant for many years, is now a thriving hub of restaurants, theaters, small shops and bustling activity.
My friend, Kim, and I, and some of her friends had dinner this evening at the Sonora Grill, one of those chic new restaurants. Afterward we walked down the revived 25th Street, which when I first moved to Ogden, was a hangout for the homeless, motorcycle gangs, scary bars and a liquor store.
Colorful horse statues are now a common sight in downtown Ogden in recent years. -- Photo by Pat Bean
The bars have mostly up-scaled, the liquor store moved, restaurants and small business opened, and the street spruced up with fresh paint, charming statues, fresh facades and colorful flowers.
Our group ended up at The City Club, a private club serving food and booze that once had been one of my let-down-the-hair places I occasionally visited after a frustrating work day.
It was both the same and different. Beatles’ photos and memorabilia still covered every inch of the walls, but the place was no longer a private club where you had to be a member to enjoy a quiet drink, and I didn’t know half the people there this night.
It felt a little strange, but here I was sitting with my old and dear friend, Kim, and fast getting to know five new people whom I had only met earlier in the evening.
Life’s like that. Things change. Buildings come and go and people move on and new ones take their places. Even the people who stay in your life, like my friend, Kim, change with time.
Thankfully, although differently, the two of us had grown in ways that had enriched our friendship bonds. If either of us had not grown, we probably wouldn’t still be friends.
Life never stands still. And if you do, you get left behind.
*Day 19 of the journey, May 7,201
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