Erasure

 When I was five or six, I started attending Willard School on Pillsbury Street in South Portland, Maine. The building is no longer there and the island of land it was on is now a park.

After a year at Willard, I went to Roosevelt School on Pine Street. That was to be my school until one was built much closer to where I lived. That building is no longer a school and it's not called Roosevelt anything now. It is Meetinghouse Lofts Condominiums.

When Dora L. Small School's construction was finished, I transferred from Roosevelt. There was a field behind Small School that had a pond we used to skate on in the winter when it froze over. The school building is now two to three time larger and the pond no longer exists.

When done with elementary school, I attended Mahoney Junior High School at the corner of Broadway and Ocean Street. Long afterward, it became Mahoney Middle School and now it's no longer a school. The city is looking at the building to house city offices and the SP police department.

After junior high, I went to South Portland High School on Highland Avenue. It's still there, though it has been added to since.

After graduating, I attended Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, MA. The school just closed this year and submitted plans to the city to subdivide the property into 30 single family homes and a couple multi-family dwellings.

I went into the Army after college. My basic training post, Fort Dix, New Jersey, is still active. But my advanced individual training post, Fort Devens, Massachusetts is now a town just called Devens. Any military affiliation it has these days is limited to Reserves.

My permanent duty station, the 24th Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia was deactivated in 1996. My particular unit, the 124th Military Intelligence Battaltion doesn't exist any more. In fact, my MOS (military occupational specialty) 05H, Signal Intelligence, International Morse Code Intercept, no longer exists as well. The 3rd Infantry Division redeployed from Germany and now occupies Fort Stewart. My old battalion is now the Welcome Center for incoming soldiers.

Both my wife's and my childhood family homes are still family homes. Just not our families.

What I see reminds me of an episode of Start Trek Next Generation where little by little reality is obliterated. Time is a great eraser.