E.B. White wrote an essay(about 1940 or so) that I read in college. "Once More to the Lake." It is about a

Question

father(Charlotte's Web) who takes his seven or eight year old son to the same lake in Maine that his father brought him to many years ago. I liked it as a 19 year old student, but I have grown to appreciate it as a father. It is about realizing one's own mortality. There is a point in the essay where the author can't tell if he is the father or the son, the two get joined together in remembering the past. As his son puts on his soggy water drenched swimming trunks he understands that the years have passed by and that he is that much closer to dying. It is a bittersweet recollection. Have you ever had the experience as a parent of taking your son or daughter back to a place where you used to go, but realizing that the years have gone by and that you can't recapture the past? Why is the word "a" deleted with a star? What kind of a letter purge is this. Is the letter "B" next. Is this Yahoo's version of Fahrenheit 451?

Answer 1

I told my daughter's about my house growing up. As I spoke, the house seriously sounded magical. As I described the house with its windows and doors, it almost sounded as if it had a face that came alive when we would wake each morning. I described the gardens.......the woods in the back with the railroad tie steps we made leading up to our swingset. I talked about the paths in the woods that we created that led to our private fort. I spoke of the room I called my own and how it was soooooooo big that I felt I was a princess with my own throneroom.

A few years back, I went back to my hometown and drove my girls past my old house. They wanted to get out and walk through the woods. The trouble was, the woods that had been thick as a jungle as I grew up, were now cleared and more houses stood in its place. The paths were gone........the fort was no more. I turned to see that my house was painted a different shade, the railroad ties gone........the swingset long been removed. I could barely recognize that this was the shaded spot in the woods where I used to play pretend.

The owner came walking out and spoke to us. After I explained that I had grown up in this house, he insisted that I bring the girls inside. I should have never done so. It was the hardest moment I could remember. The shell of the house was the same, but nothing inside remotely resembled the magical palace I had described to my daughters. The floors, the panelling, the kitchen.......totally remodeled. The bathrooms were unrecognizable. Walls torn down......new ones erected. As I walked past what was once my room, it looked so tiny. My throneroom was now an office space with technology all around. I had to smile as I remembered how I couldn't even talk my father into installing a phone jack in that room. Yes.....many things had changed.

My girls were gracious and thanked the family for letting us tour the house. We all three drove away in silence. My precious girls didn't say a word. They knew me well enough to know that my heart was hurting.......longing for what once was......yet will never be again.

Answer 2

I have found that going back is always a disappointment. Because things are never the same. You left there as a child with a child's memories and return as an adult. You simply don't see the same view as most likely it has changed drastically, plus your child's imagination has probably been lost somewhere along the way too.

I haven't had the chance to go back to a place where my children were small. I would enjoy that tremendously, because immediately you would remember it as it was when your own children were there, I think.

Answer 3

Yowee this exchange into you stayin up early/previous due sis. extraordinarily severe your piece is, and my first examine of the day sis. I nonetheless think of and hear echo's from a door slamming, seeming now see you later in the past and fading is the tangible photograph of you what is left is a hollow interior the wall, the place hangs my extreme heel shoe

Answer 4

No. But its OK. Ultimately.. nothing pleases me more than to at least know they are loved and cared for.