Why Nostalgia Isn't
Driving back into Lubbock, TX, I notice a lot of things:
The little Mexican bakery where I spent many a lunch break in high school is completely gone (I seem to remember that from last Christmas, but I'm still sad about it). I'm sure there are plenty of other bakeries around just like it, but it's not the same as back then, when I could walk in there on a rainy November day, and they'd smile and call me by first name, and start filling up for me a big bag of pan de huevos or anise bread or whatever else had just come out of their big oven.
The church where I used to work in college indeed finished building the new building they'd started saving up for, in the location next to the highway they'd always wanted. It was amazing, though — maybe it was all about perspective, the difference between this new church sitting out on its own, versus the little old one tucked in among the trees and houses of its neighborhood — either way, this new little church, for all the grandiose glory that was described to its members and other monetary contributors, seems so small and lonely and insignificant.
Most of the coffee shops I used to call a second home during college are still there, but about half have changed names (and presumably ownership, probably several times). A lot of them don't even seem to be open before about 5pm.
Every Chinese restaurant has become a "super buffet" (granted, this is nothing unique to Lubbock — Dallas seems to be having the same problem), but I have to feel bad for all the little Asian restaurants desperately trying to hold their own against a culture who's beginning to think it's all just "Chinese food," and that a quarter of the world, in addition to their hot and sour soup, sits down every evening to a dinner of fried dough puffs, hot wings, and soft serve ice cream.
Finally, there's all those little things: record stores have become clothing stores, clothing stores have become doctors' offices, doctors' offices have become pregnancy clinics. Not to mention, fields have become houses, and strip malls have become fields, and so it goes. . . .