Google Street View comes to Bowling Green

For the longest time, Google Maps had fuzzy views of my hometown. I wondered if there was a secret government facility that the satellites weren't allowed to show. But that's in the past. In fact, Bowling Green has been photographed by the Google Street View minions.

I think all told I lived in four different residences in BG. But I only remember these two:

The first was 424 S. College Drive. This is the house that my sisters came to from the hospital after they were born. My dad and grandfather built the shed that you can see over the front car on the right. It's to their credit that it still stands 50 years later. And to the credit of the benign neglect of the current owners.


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In third grade we moved to 339 Sandridge. I lived there until we moved to California, the summer before my senior year, in 1973.  The back yard was as big as the front, if not more so, and there was only a woods behind that. You hardly felt cramped.

Across the street is what was then just an empty lot, but is now "Rainey Park" after the former owners. I played many a ball game in the lot. (The Raineys were David Pogue's grandparents. An older retired couple. I used to run letters to the mail box for Mrs. Rainey, for which she'd pay me 25 cents (in the late 60s!). After we moved to California, Mrs Rainey sent me a letter bragging on her grandson. I ran across the letter a few years ago and sent it to Pogue.)


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It does seem the quality of the photos of Bowling Green are reduced. Compare those with this picture of the current residence:

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