Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Memory Lane by Lake Erie

kw: the past, nostalgia, reminiscences

This is a scene about six blocks from the house I lived in my 9th grade year, in Lakewood, Ohio. It is Clifton & Belle, looking north toward Lakewood Park. This is as close as Google Street View currently comes to the house.

Lakewood Park is the locus of most of my fond memories of Lakewood. When I started 10th grade, I found that the new high school was dominated by youth gangs, with which I was soon in deep trouble, just for refusing to join one. Fortunately, we moved by November, to Sandusky, which move I credit with saving my life.

At Lakewood park I was on the park swim team and learned lifeguarding skills. In the winter, they filled a bermed area with water to freeze, and we all skated there. Skating on any part of nearby Lake Erie was too hazardous, because the lake is in constant motion, being shallow, and the ice breaks unpredictably. Only one person has survived an attempt to walk from Point Pelee, Ontario to Cleveland.

This zoomed-out view of the Street View image shows the controls. It is much clearer and easier to use than Street View was just a couple months ago. The navigation arrows that let you "drive" down a street don't show here, because they fade out of view if you just sit quietly for a moment. A cool feature. Move the mouse, and they appear again.

I can get an overhead view of the nearby house, but I'll wait for a street-level image, whenever the Google folks get around to it.

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