You can go home again...

...but home is always changing. Every rainstorm washes away a bit of the soil. Trees grow, seasons change, like in so many songs and poems. We say "you can't go home again" because it is never the same, but we forget how it never stayed the same in the first place. Change is a part of life. I've always thought Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium applied to not just the speed of evolutionary changes, but of most complex changes. The little things add up, so to speak.

When I returned to Westminster, I found it had changed, in both small ways and big. The once barren and empty field behind my house had been developed into something like an upper-middle class suburban resort called the Westminster Promenade. A 12-story hotel now towered above carefully landscaped hills and man-made ponds. I thought of those stakes, and my attempts to stop development, and paled. I'd lost--it changed--and how! One night, my parents, who moved into a new neighborhood before they lost their view, invited me to dinner and a movie at the Promenade. Although I was well past my years of teen angst, I couldn't help but sneer. My mom knew how much the changes upset me.

"Karmen, I know you feel like they took away your childhood joys by building this place, but take a look around. You would have loved to have had this in your backyard instead of a field," she said, gesturing to the movie theaters and the stores selling chocolates and ice creams. Down the path, children were laughing and playing in the fountain. I smiled, it reminded me of the wonderful time I had as a kid at the '86 World's Fair in Vancouver, where they had fountains just for the children. Beyond was the largest ice skating rink I'd ever seen in Colorado--I knew I would have enjoyed that. I thought of the Butterfly Pavilion across the street, where for a small fee you could enter a room filled with butterflies and feed them. (Although, after all this time, I still haven't checked that one out.) Even the teenagers walking around, carrying their skateboards, sporting their own angst, looked like they enjoyed the place. I hated to admit it, but my Mom was right. They did a nice job with this place.

I found the pictures I'd taken of the field, years ago (posted here yesterday) and decided to find the same places again. I brought my husband and son along, mostly so I'd have someone to reminisce to. (You know, it's a mother's prerogative to launch into the "When I was your age, we used to..." speech.) We stopped by Lower Church Lake first, where a small strip remained relatively unchanged. While I walked around, feeling nostalgic, my son threw rocks into mud puddles. When it came time to move on, he argued. "No, Mom, I like it here, I don't want to go!"

Of course, when we brought him to the fountains, he forgot his troubles. (That's him, having a blast in the picture above.) Other things caught his fancy, like a set of brass horse sculptures overlooking the ponds. He wasn't the least bit surprised when one of the horses started to talk, although his father was. We stuffed him full of pizza and candy, and pointed out other things, like the movies, or a glow-in-the-dark putt-putt golf course. At the end of the night, I asked him, "What did you like best today--the promenade, with the fountains, or the field with the mud and rocks?" I fully expected him to start raving about the fountains and candy again, but he surprised me. "I liked them both, Mom. Can we go back?" I smiled. You know what they say about wisdom from the mouths of babes.

"Yes, honey, we can go back."

Maybe next time, I'll tell him about George H. Church, who raised cattle here over 100 years ago. Or I'll tell him how that ditch Church dug connected to his favorite lake, Standley Lake, and to the irrigation system in his own backyard. But that's another day for him, and the next post here, when we'll look at more of now and then.

Then and Now: Church Ranch in 1991 and 2006

The field:

The view from the Denver-Boulder Turnpike near Lower Church Lake:

9/2006: Corrected minor errors.

Next: Wandering West