If someone who used to live in your house 20 years ago came by wanted wanted to see inside...

[Rhiannon12866]

55. I experienced almost the opposite thing just last week

I was on my way home from a family event (my great uncle was honored for his WWI service) and to avoid traffic I drove through the town where I grew up and through my old neighborhood and down my old street. I do this occasionally when I'm in the area. We moved a lot when I was a kid, my Dad did well at his job and would be promoted to a larger area so we'd have to move again. But this was the place where I got to go to the same school for more than one year and I was happy there, I had 2 best friends and we lived there long enough - 5 years - that I was due to start high school there in the fall.

It was also the first new house that we had. I remember seeing it as it was being built, a new house on a new street and I made friends with the kids in the neighborhood, too. Before, my parents had rented, but this time I guess we were staying awhile. We even got a puppy! I was happy there and was devastated when we had to move again.

It doesn't look much the same, it's kind of overgrown, it's a different color with different doors and someone built a carport. Back then they built houses with one car garages. So I stopped in the road (it's a side residential street) and took a couple of pictures with my phone, I've done this before. And as I got towards the end of the street, a truck caught up with me and when I didn't stop, he started blowing his horn.

So I stopped and this angry older guy pulled up next to me, rolled down his window and demanded "Why are you taking pictures of my house?!" Oh boy. I kept smiling and said "Because I used to live in that house," told him my parents built that house, when we lived there and named my local school, figured the facts had to be pretty convincing. He calmed down and told me he'd redone the house and the yard (which I could see), apparently he'd lived there awhile. I told him that I had little turtles and goldfish buried in that yard, pets I'd had before we got the puppy.

I also hope I straightened him out, he insisted that house was built in the '50s. I told him that I was there when it was built and that was in the '60s. I doubt that the street existed in the '50s. And he actually mellowed and said if I was in town I could stop by sometime and see the house. Then he asked me if I'd been around at about 2am recently - which I obviously had not - so if someone had bothered him late at night, I can understand his alarm at seeing me taking pix.

I'd actually really love to - my grandmother and I had stopped by one time back when I was in college when the house was for sale, but no one was home - but now I have the opposite problem - I don't know this angry guy!