Think about the place in your life that has not changed all the way through your span of years. There. I bet you've got a place in mind. If someone had asked me mine, before this week, I would have instantly answered Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

Although I realize that The Pier had to be rebuilt after the blizzard of 78', I'd only been ten months old at the time, and no more than 4 months old the summer before when I'd last seen it pre-storm. So to me, that's pretty much a non-event. In all the years I've gone there, there are only two memorable changes: about 15 years ago the grocery store just off the main drag closed, and 7 or 8 years ago they added a bookstore.

The comforting perdictablity was so ingrained that I wrote about it, and some people who'd been there once said that was just how they remembered it - and these are people who visited different years.

So imagine my shock to see major changes this year.  Dream Machine is gone! This was the arcade where my brother and dad used to spend hours while mom and I shopped. I honed my skeetball skills there, such as they are. Vynce and I played countless games of Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons, and feed Hungry Betha's puppet mouth the balls she called for endlessly. We handed over hundreds of paper tickets for candy and plastic crap, and occasionally got our fortunes "told" by the maniquin in the booth.

Now it's gone.

In it's place is most of a hotel. I don't know why you'd want to stay somewhere that's bound to be noisy almost all of the time. I don't know why you'd want to stay several stories up from a piece of my childhood...

My favorite store on the pier, the one just to the left of the enterance, is now a sports bar. It's hard not to think of all the things I wanted there and never bought.

And now never will.

Visits to lifelong favorite haunts shouldn't be depressing like that. I don't think I'll say "yes" if asked to go next year. I'd of been happier this year not to know that things changed.