I came of age in a town that no longer exists

[No Exit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/national/nationalspecial/22louisiana.html?ex=1290315600&en=96a67d624f89c525&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

That article tells the latest on the situation.

I don't think many modern Americans have had this experience. I feel like I once lived in, I don't know, the lost city of Troy, or something. Or maybe the sunken continent of Atlantis.

It's not there any more. The streets I walked are physically there, but I'm trying to imagine walking the length of Elysian Fields Avenue, as I used to do. (Stanley and Blanche lived in the Ninth Ward, you know.) The houses would be all empty and ruined.

I feel like, if I went back, I'd be living in some weird "Ghost of Christmas Future" scenario. The eerie one, the one where Scrooge saw tombstones.

I stay here instead. It's not so real. I can still remember the lively streets, the parties, the music, the Mardi Gras parades, the heat, Audubon Park, and that weird place on the sidewalk where tiles were inlaid and they spelled out "Stop. Don't go any further." (There was never any explanation for why this was written in tiles in the cement of the sidewalk. It was just there.)

[ashling]

1. Maybe not the same or for the same reasons,

but many in rural areas have had their towns disappear right from under them. And not just rural areas, thanks to outsourcing . . . walk the streets of Flint, MI or a dozen mill towns in the south that have been depopulated overnight.

[No Exit]

4. Interesting... I was just reading about a small town like that.

Can't remember its name, exactly. Rokoski? Rowena?

Dang it, the article was up just yesterday.

Yes, it was spooky reading about it!

[Skittles]

2. what about us GI brats?

we never really grew up in any town, just moved constantly

[No Exit]

3. True, but I guess if you had fond memories of one of the towns,

you could go back for a visit!

[Skittles]

9. trouble is you remember so little of it because you never stayed long

funny, the people always remembered me but I had to rack my brain to remember their names.

[Aristus]

5. You were Air Force, right Skittles? Then you may not have heard

of this town: Stithton, Kentucky. You have to have been Army to have heard of it. It was the town located where Fort Knox now stands. I lived on Ft. Knox twice; once as a MilDep, and then again as a soldier myself. It was weird to walk around Main Post in an area that used to be a civilian town, with homes, stores, a large brick church (now Main Post Chapel) and realize that it's all gone. Overlaid with a bustling military installation. The main traffic circle in Ft. Knox has a plaque commemorating Stithton. Another town that disappeared from the map.

[Skittles]

8. hell, I went with GOPisEvil to pick up William Pitt at the Austin Airport

IT USED TO BE BERGSTROM AFB where I spent 3 and a half years! I did recognize a few things - like where the guard shack was.

Also, Chanute Air Force Base where I was born doesn't exist any longer. :(

[GumboYaYa]

6. It is so sad to think of the many, many places, people, and events

that are so dear to me, that will never exist again.

It is hard to explain to people who don't have to live it that seeing Liuzza's flooded or watching Jackson Barracks on T.V., we see more than just places. Those are fond memories of the past that may be gone forever.

[tx_dem41]

10. I would kill for a bowl of Liuzza's gumbo right now.

:)

[Igel]

7. I'm not sure if my father's hometown suffered a worse fate or not.

The company that owned the land wanted to built a blast furnace where the town was. The company built the town to begin win, and leased the houses to the residents.

They stopped renewing the leases, closed the post office, stores, churches, and banks, and then, one day, sent in the bulldozers. Not even the streets or the zip code remained.

Just as well; a few years later the company all but shut the steel mill, and a decade or so later went belly up.