Memory Maps
Life April 5th, 2005 |As far as memes go, this is one of the best I’ve seen yet. After discovering Google Maps’ new satellite-view option, Matt Haughey took a screenshot of his childhood neighborhood and used Flickr’s annotation feature to mark it up with memories of his growing years. This inspired the memorymap tag and the Memory Maps group — and I’ve added four Memory Maps covering my younger years.
This first one is an overview of the South Muldoon Road area, where the majority of my growing years were spent. Covers two neighborhoods, two houses, and two elementary schools.
The second shot zooms in a bit on one of the two neighborhoods, and covers from first through third grade. We actually moved to the other neighborhood in the middle of my third grade year, but parents kept me at the same school to finish out that year as it was still within easy driving distance. Not quite as many memories on this one as on the next, as I was much younger then.
Shot number three covers everything from fourth grade until I moved out of my parents’ house after high school graduation. Lots of memories buried in this one — friends houses, play spaces…make sure to check out all the notes on the photo for some fun stories.
For the last in the series, we move a few miles north to my high school (the best six years of my life! Um…wait…nevermind…). Without being able to zoom into classroom-view resolution (which isn’t likely to happen, as it would involve ripping off the roof of the school), I’ve done the best I could to point out pertinent bits.
Fun to do. Not a bad way to revisit the old stomping grounds, either, since I can do it from the comfort of my apartment here in Seattle! 
“Thorns (Distant Vocals)” by :Wumpscut: from the album Born Again (1998, 5:50).
[See also: Stating the obvious | Mother’s Day | Lots of Pictures | Finally, More Photos! | Out for the Weekend ]
Greg
mano
dad
Edony Elder
Super Geek
April 6th, 2005 at 9:18 am
Dude, this is great! As a lover of both details and history, I may get sucked into this in a big way.
I must point out that I met you at Scenic Park, not Susitna. What years did you go there again?
-royce
April 6th, 2005 at 9:49 am
Oops, I had the names flip-flopped. That’s been fixed.
Oh, I know — I spent a good few hours last night both getting these set up, thinking about how I could do a couple more, and looking at others that have been posted on Flickr. Even when I don’t know the people or the towns, it’s fascinating to go through and read all these little mini-stories that people are putting up.