There used to be a water park in my hometown that had a bunch of slides and a wave pool. I used to go there all the time as a kid, and even went there as a senior on a trip. I went to birthday parties there, sometimes.

It closed in 2020 and never reopened because they had apparently been avoiding paying bills for years. It wasn’t just the pandemic. It was visible from the freeway, so I watched it slowly being demolished over the next couple years any time I passed by.

I haven’t found a water park that really compared to it yet. Most are either too small or part of a larger theme park, which is fine. It just seemed like the fact that it exclusively was a water park allowed it to focus more on the atmosphere and types of slides it had.

    • Hanhula@kbin.social
      7·
      1 year ago

      I feel that. Went back home for a visit last year and so much has changed. It’s bizarre, feeling disconnected from where I live and yet like home has moved on without me.

  • Yewb@kbin.social
    22·
    1 year ago

    The Texas from my childhood, most Texans dont give a shit about identity politics, you would think there are a bunch of brown hating cowboys - that was not the case Texas was incredibly tolerant.

  • Tigbitties@kbin.social
    20·
    1 year ago

    There was a forest we use to play in behind my friends house . It had a few giant trees. They must have been hundreds of years old. One was 3-4 meters in diameter. We used to climb them using the coarse bark up to the branches and see how high we could go. You could see the whole neighborhood. Wonderful memories.

    That whole area is filled with Mcmansions now.

    • irinotecan@kbin.social
      6·
      1 year ago

      This happened on a much smaller scale to me. My grandparent’s home was demolished to make way for a McMansion after they sold it. They were the only people to ever live in that beautiful house.

    • laivindil@kbin.social
      6·
      1 year ago

      Same where I grew up, worst part was the developer bought it like two decades ago, sat on it for five ish years (logged a single dirt road), then put in paved roads/utilities and a demo house for another five with empty lots cut, and the last ten or so have built maybe four more. So it’s not even utilized, they cut down huge swaths of forest and it’s just sat most of the time.

    • brownpaperbag@kbin.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      We had an incredible ravine that got destroyed for a highway that I’ve driven many times as an adult. It’s a rare trip that I don’t think back to the beautiful place where I spent countless hours of summer breaks being wild and free.

    • limelight79@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 year ago

      There are some woods in our neighborhood, which aren’t owned by anyone in the neighborhood. The risk is obvious. I would like us to buy those woods so we control them, but every time I say it, they start screeching, “I don’t want an HOA!” Neither do I, I have two RVs sitting in my driveway. But I would like some limited partnership simply for owning those woods…

  • BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social
    20·
    1 year ago

    You can’t step in the same river twice. ~ Heraclitus.

    I’m just glad I realized this early as I did. I made sure to cherish each place, knowing full well it would eventually disappear.

  • Jarmer@kbin.social
    15·
    1 year ago

    Two big ones for me:
    1- a local arcade. Spent so many summer days there with friends. TMNT, Street fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc etc etc.
    2- laser quest! Lots of birthday parties there.

  • Turkey_Titty_city@kbin.social
    13·
    1 year ago

    being able to go out alone in the woods at the age of 8-12 or just go down to your friends house. or have any unsupervised time alone time.

  • fear@kbin.social
    12·
    1 year ago

    The mall. Technically it’s still there, but it’s a shell of its former self.

    • RupeThereItIs@kbin.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      The mall I used to ride my bike to as a child, where my favorite Arcade (Aladdin’s Castle) & had a toy store (K.B. Toys) was leveled to the ground about 20 years ago, with the exception of like two restaurants at the corner of the building.

      It’s now some fake ass ‘downtown’ like outdoor mall, in Michigan, with terrible parking & it’s just gross.

      I miss Meadowbrook Mall, man, I miss it a lot.

      I was gonna say “The Arcade” but you made me remember the entire mall it resided in got blown up.

    • wjrii@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Town centers and outdoor outlet centers are just malls, but worse. No AC, fewer small businesses somehow, parking shoved in between the stores, and (in the town centers) half-assed (at best) mixed use.

      For all of their many, many flaws, a lot of malls actually fell backwards into accidentally doing some interesting things in terms of being community spaces.

  • mihnt@kbin.social
    12·
    1 year ago

    The farm I grew up on. They flattened this HUGE hill to do it as well. They removed a creek, natural lake, and tons of forest. For a flat, treeless, subdivision.

  • midi_sentinel@kbin.social
    9·
    1 year ago

    USSR
    East Germany
    Yugoslavia
    Czechoslovakia
    Amiga (oh, I hate Commodore eternally…)
    Rotary phones
    Incandescent light bulbs

    I could do this all day ;)

    edit: yeah, these are not things that were just “around the corner”, but it is amazing how much world changes actually and we are so used to it

    • 567PrimeMover@kbin.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      Just video rental stores in general. In my area there was a little rental place called “video to go”. It was a small, and probably unremarkable as far as video stores go. Pretty much your stereotypical small town rental place. Every once in a while my dad would take us there to pick out a movie and some snacks for the evening.

      That place went out of business long ago, and you can’t even recognize the building anymore it’s been remodeled so many times. We had a family video move into town after video to go went under, and they stuck around until family video went out of business. I miss being able to actually go somewhere to pick out a movie rather than mindlessly flipping through a streaming catalog.

  • kestrel7@kbin.social
    7·
    1 year ago

    This goofy ass restaurant that served the food to your table on model trains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKoCam8WqC4

    RIP, their food was probably just OK but I was a little kid so it was all totally amazing.

    As a bonus, the very end of this video has one of the old Seattle trolleys, which also aren’t around anymore.

  • joeygibson@kbin.social
    6·
    1 year ago

    The World Of Sid And Marty Krofft in Atlanta. It was a mindfuck of an indoor amusement park located in what’s now CNN Center. Granted, it was only open for six months in 1976, but I was able to go, and as a six year-old kid, it was amazing.

  • you_are_dust@lemm.ee
    6·
    1 year ago

    There used to be an ice cream place near where I grew up. Old style bar with stools to sit at while you ate ice cream and a huge ball pit with a slide. I loved that place growing up and it’s sad that kids now can’t experience it. I’m sure there are places like that out there somewhere, but not anywhere close to that area.