{"id":31127,"date":"2026-07-24T08:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T18:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=31127"},"modified":"2026-09-07T14:50:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T00:50:46","slug":"the-futility-of-going-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=31127","title":{"rendered":"The Futility of Going Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I had not been back for over four decades.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"My<\/a>
My childhood home along SW Sunrise Lane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

My parents sold my childhood home shortly after I joined the Air Force in the mid 1980’s. They abandoned the suburbs and bought a very nice home in the city, which they still own today. It is this home I stay in when visiting Portland. For four decades, this is now \u201chome\u201d in many ways, but not the house I grew up in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My childhood house is still there, along Sunrise Lane in the far southwest of the Portland metro area. This is the home featured in childhood memories spent roaming deep forests and neglected orchards. A green childhood of trees, sheep and chickens, endless mowing, picking blackberries and plums, or wandering a wonderland created by another ice storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Sunrise<\/a>
The remaining fields and woodland around Sunrise Lane, Google satellite image<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The truly astounding thing is that much of those forests and orchards are still there. While the surrounding area has been swallowed by intense suburban development, the fields and forests that made up the old neighborhood have survived, an odd anachronism set within a sea of townhomes, strip malls, and crowded roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viewing the satellite imagery, the neighborhood is now an isolated island of green surrounded by this urban sprawl, the fields and forests we roamed as kids were mostly spared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Returning from a forest and waterfall hike<\/a> in the Wilson River area, I found myself nearby and having the afternoon free. Thus I decided to revisit those old memories\u2026 I turned to cross the Tualatin River Valley, through farmland dimly remembered. Much has changed, new roads, landmarks vanished. I set Google Maps to show me the route through the time-ravaged landscape, else I would have been lost where I once knew the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I park at the top of Sunrise Lane, at what is now Sunrise Park, a field and walking paths where houses once stood. From there I walk down the hill, taking the same route I once walked daily to get to the school bus. I remember the gang of kids that once passed this way, walking to the bus or simply roaming through weekends and summer breaks. We ran and played, raiding cherry trees or vegetable gardens when hungry, with no other worry than being home for dinner, a different age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I note another house that has disappeared, replaced by a vastly larger home, twice the size, with a three-car garage standing in place of the modest home that once stood on the same lot. This is a reflection of the current value of land here on the hill with forest and open space.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
A doe lounges in the shade along Sunrise Lane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To my surprise, a doe lounges in the shade of a neighbor’s yard. A testimony that this island of green still shelters wildlife. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our old house appears to be a bit worse for the passing decades. Looking from the street reveals haphazard maintenance and a neglected yard. I recall mowing that yard using well-practiced patterns I worked out for maximum efficiency. Only one of the plum trees remains, the large vegetable garden and chicken coop are also gone. Vanished are my mother’s well-tended rhododendrons and azaleas, the live Christmas trees we planted now loom over the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder, it may not be long before our old house too is replaced by something more grand. The lot has to be quite valuable, high on Bull Mountain with its sweeping views across the valley to the distant coastal range.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Jerry's<\/a>
Jerry’s hay barn with Andrew and Ben Cooper, photo by Earl Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The survival of much of the surrounding fields and forest is due to the legacy of one man, Jerry Cach. The Cach family were close friends… Jerry, Joan, Chris, and Lisa… Many weekends were spent playing cards together, summer evenings were often spent at Jerry’s Pond in the woods while enjoying a picnic dinner together. I still remember Joan’s handmade macaroni and cheese topped with crushed Ritz crackers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jerry was a real estate broker, his bold red and white Cach’s Realty signs were once a common sight around town. Jerry knew better than any of us what was happening to the area, that development would claim everything. The land is now Cach Nature Park<\/a>, donated by Jerry to the City of Tigard to save at least a small place from the oncoming wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Cach Nature Park sits below our old house, the open field above and behind the house is now a massive 4.5 million gallon water tank<\/a> built to supply the new neighborhoods below. It sits mostly buried and covered with grass, in a way still an open field.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
A trail through the woods at Cach Nature Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Because it is parkland, I can walk the old paths of childhood without trespassing. I take full advantage of this to retrace my childhood footprints through the woods of memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overgrown fences with gates now lodged permanently open under the blackberries allow passage. A thicket of more blackberry now stands where Jerry’s old barn once stored hay. The big walnut tree where Chris and I built a treehouse is gone, yet another blackberry thicket in its place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jerry\u2019s Pond, or simply The Pond, features prominently in childhood memories\u2026 The swimming hole of childhood. The site of long summer evenings with several families eating at the long picnic table Jerry and dad built under the towering maple trees. Here dwell momories of the fire pit roasting chicken, a big tray of macaroni and cheese, with cribbage boards awaiting the end of dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"The<\/a>
The rope swing at Jerry’s Pond, photo by Earl Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

There was once a rope swing suspended between two fir trees, allowing one to reach twenty or thirty feet over the pond before splashing down into the brown-green water. I recall the trees echoing with yelling, the vicious water fights that ensured we all swam like fish and could survive dunking and near-drowning on a daily basis. Somehow we all lived to ride on the tailgate of Jerry\u2019s Jeep back up the steep hill to home.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Jerry's<\/a>
Jerry’s Pond, a childhood swimming hole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As I stand there, it all seems smaller now\u2026 The trail shorter, the pond less deep, the trees not as tall, diminished from the grand memories of childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now overgrown, I search for remnants of the past. The picnic table is gone, but the big maple tree and fire pit remain, and the railroad ties my father set are hidden beneath the brush. The rope swing has vanished along with the dock we used to climb out for another swing. There are traces remaining… The tires used to mount the cable still wrap the trees high above, a steel ladder protrudes from the water where the dock once stood.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Remains<\/a>
Remains of a dock at Jerry’s Pond<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I take a few photos and fly the drone to capture what remains, hovering above the pond and shooting a panorama. While the drone does its automated shoot, I sit at the water’s edge, I recall the memories, the days of childhood, and all that happened here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While packing up the drone, I note a flash of orange in the brush. The old life-raft, the prize in so many water fights, now lies half-sunken on the far side of the pond. Purchased from the old Zidell breakers yard<\/a> off a WWII liberty ship, the raft now lies quietly, no yelling kids and violent splashing, but rather the peaceful home of newts and bullfrogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walk back up the path, regretting that there is no tailgate to ride upon, nor are the blackberries ripe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

While the old neighborhood has been largely spared, the town of Tigard I once knew has been erased. What was once a sleepy farming town is simply gone. Buried beneath strip malls and subdivisions. The feed and grain store beside the railroad tracks is now a parking lot. The old main street erased and rebuilt in modern blah. The supermarket we shopped at serves a second life as Harbor Freight Tools.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Joy\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
The Joy Theater in Tigard, Oregon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

There are a few survivors\u2026 The old library I spent so much time in, once a general store, is still there, though barely recognizable. The Joy Theater is still there, in good shape and currently playing Toy Story 5. St James Church, where I attended mass and Sunday school for years, appears untouched by the passing decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise, I could barely recognize the town I once knew. I had plenty of time to look while sitting in heavy traffic and waiting at the innumerable traffic lights on what was once a quiet highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

To see what remains and what has vanished is a bit bewildering. I realize that some of the change is likely due to my fading memories, but most is simply the march of time and development that accompanied the growth of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this old house and the surrounding community that shaped what I am now. I wonder about a child growing up in the same neighborhood today. Would they be denied the same experience? Would modern life be more restrictive, with less opportunity to experience the world? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am glad I found a few hours to revisit my past, to see again those childhood places. I am a bit amazed at what has survived, but I also mourn the loss of what was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realize I will probably never return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had not been back for over four decades. My parents sold my childhood home shortly after I joined the Air Force in the mid 1980’s. They abandoned the suburbs and bought a very nice home in the city, which they still own today. It is this home I stay in when visiting Portland. For … Continue reading “The Futility of Going Home”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1336,20],"tags":[2854,1230,2111,2112,2999],"class_list":["post-31127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-portland","category-random","tag-childhood","tag-home","tag-oregon","tag-portland","tag-tigard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31127"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31225,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31127\/revisions\/31225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}