Every now and then, when I visit Hawaii, I drive through the neighborhoods where I grew up. Usually, I see them through the rose-colored glasses of the past. I see the way it used to be. . . a new redwood structure, with a concrete patio and retaining walls built by Uncle Hans, a front yard of water grass and other weeds cut to look like real grass, a garage, clean but not pristine, and rows of houses permeated with the smell of fresh redwood.
So, I stared at the broken-down motor on the floor of our garage of yesteryear. And, the yard was unkempt. I didn’t think you could do less with a yard than we had, but I was wrong. Now there were metal parts sticking up through the grass and the weeds were not clipped down to dampen their almost inevitable rise to power. The fissures in the retaining walls were growing to pencil-sized proportions and the once-beautiful patio was chipped, broken and covered by a layer of redwood.
Where were my rose-colored glasses when I really needed them? I could see in my mind a faint image of the past, of neighborhoods past, of times which have passed so quickly that I didn’t even notice the changes which now defined my heritage.
Why did I never see this before?