It's amazing how quickly memories can come flooding back given the right circumstance. The last time I lived here was more than half a lifetime ago, at the place my family first moved into when I was only 2 years old. My parents are still there, well over 50 years later, but age and circumstances as they are have meant that I have needed to be here, once again. It's funny how age and time often reverses roles in life.

This is the place I grew up. Many hours riding the bike before and after school, the massive bonfires on cracker nights in the bush out the back, the hikes through the National Park, catching tadpoles and swimming in the creek. Playing with the kids in the neighbourhood - most nights until almost dark, waiting until the last minute possible and you knew you would be skirting the boundaries of real trouble. My first job was delivering letterbox leaflets for the local corner store. Didn't last long. Got busted throwing all the leaflets out onto a disused block. Didn't like the shop anyway. Anyhow, this morning I took a walk around some my childhood streets, reminiscing on times gone by, and exploring the changes over the years. The bush out the back is still there - a little overgrown, and waiting for development into a freeway which has been on the cards since my parents first moved there. I guess one day. Progress.

I have lost contact with pretty much anyone I went to school with, but I guess that often happens.. What happened to those kids? Where did we go? What has life offered up for each of us? I walked past so many of those childhood homes, some still original, many sold and redeveloped.. the Rodgers, Openshaw, Fearnley, the Landon twins, Mumby, Popple, Lockwood, Bone, Hamilton, Knowles, Bulmer... the names came streaming back, each with it's own little slice of history in my mind. Distant echoes of times gone by. Has life been kind to each of these childhood faces flashing in my memory? Successful in life? Healthy? Married? Separated? Happy? I guess for a lot of them, I'll never know. They each will have their own story to tell, as circumstances and time twist their way through life, moulding the outcomes and inevitabilities we each face in our journey. Time somehow never waits. It just marches on, irrespective of status, success or failure. Dust to ashes. Ashes to dust. Make the most of the time in between.