Today Jim Heffernan republished "That Special Christmas Place" on his blog; it was originally published in 1983.
It made me think of some of the places where I lived that don't exist anymore. I personally saw that the house I lived in from 1947 to 1951 is no more as well as some of its neighbors. From Google Street view I saw that an apartment building I lived in from 1951 to 1953 is gone and that a drugstore that we lived over in the early 1940s is gone.
They weren't the best houses in the world, but they were home. I have no ownership of them and few would value them as a place the "famous" Mel Magree lived. However, that there is a vacant lot or a parking lot where I once lived does leave a vacant spot in my heart. I think this is so because I can't put my hands on any pictures I may have of these places and that my descendants can't go to the places as they are in my memory.
See also "Often you really can't go home".
