Google Street-View evoked memories...

[Nick Matkin]

Well here's a strange one, and PA is probably a good place to share...

I'm in my 50s and have just been looking at Google Street View. Rather unexpectedly I found it a pretty emotional experience, finding the lane where I first learnt to ride a bike; revisiting a street where I suddenly remembered a particular conversation with my dad 40-odd years ago; seeing the place where my first pet was run over and reliving all the sadness that followed.

Going past a cottage where my two great aunts lived and catching butteries as a kid in their garden, and nagging my dad to take me through the nearby wild-garlic-filled woods to go fishing in the river...

And thinking if I could just whisper in my ear as a 7 year old at the entrance to the primary school I can now see, that there will be ups and downs in the coming decades, but don't loose your nerve lad and it'll be ok.

Such an emotional and poignant experience has taken me by surprise. All those years ago. So many people now gone.

I know, I'm usually the hard-nosed skeptic injecting a grounded opinion on here. But I just wondered if I'm alone in allowing this emotional wallowing in distant memories to be triggered by a literal walk down memory lane using technology unimaginable all those years ago...

Nick

[Jackson]

Nope....certainly not alone. I have also done this and brought back a lot of memories....good and bad. Always nice to go back and see the many changes.
Thanks Nick for this.

Jackson

[joeecho]

Yes, if we do not have the time or resources to walk down our physical memory lanes, it is at least available by using the advances of technology.

I can't help but think that it is like a lucid dream (a subject talked about in another recent thread) when we walk down memory lane like this.

Thanks for sharing your moments.....

[Azt]

I think google is on time traveling with its nano computing.

[mosquito]

That's beautiful Nick. While I have yet to do this using street view, I have to confess to spending many an hour viewing the places I've lived, trying to identify the apple tree in the garden of the house where I was born, and seeing the way that everywhere has changed and yet is somehow the same.

In a similar vein, I often listen to and download songs from my early childhood, though there are some I can't find (yet).

I suppose it's natural to do this. In the last few years I've become increasingly aware of my own mortality, especially at times when I feel I haven't got the energy or will to take another step in a world which is getting exponentially more insane.

Sigh

[jc71]

Hi all,

There was a great online experience a few years ago which did exactly this accompanying a (in my opinion) great music track by Arcade Fire.

You might have to run it in Google Chrome, but here is the link anyway. It is pretty cool.

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Regards,

JC

[sirdipswitch]

I spend at least 25-30% of my time on computer, in Google Earth, exploring all the places I've lived and been during my travels as Long Haul "Trucker". In the beginning the GE world was mostly very "fuzzy" low res, but now one can explore most of the world in a very "adequate", high enough res to get a pretty good feel, for most places. Then add to that, all of the local pictures and placemarks that people post, and you can find an absolutely mind boggling amount of information, about most anyplace you wish to explore. Love it!!!

Some really interesting things I've run across. Such as... "somebody", with a large "Front-End Loader"... wandering all over the "Taklamakan Desert", in N.Tibet, digging holes all over the place , evidently looking for "something", but without any placemarks explaning what they're looking for. hmm. The area is high enough res, that one can follow those FE-Loader tracks all over the place. chuckle chuckle.

And didja know?? That a bunch of those, "Budda Temples", perched on top of those high frozen peaks, are sittin over the entrance to underground caverns, that hold libraries with thousands of ancient manuscripts. Some it has been said, (written) date back 18 "Million" years, that were secreted away, from, and durring, the "burning" of the library at Alexandria, Egypt, that Alexander himself had discovered in his travels, and placed there for all the worlds bennefit. Gee, wonder why "They", wanted that library destroyed? hmm. ccc.

Great thread Nick!!! See whatcha did??? As I walk down Memory lane, it always very quickly leads me to some of the really wierd stuff I have found. Guess it's just how my brain works. ccc.

[MargueriteBee]

Yes, I've done that too. Good way to assist in a life review.

[huyi82]

I did that when i first tried Google earth, visited every place i grew up and been too, but it wears out after a while and you get bored of it, good while it last though.