I know it’s still around, but the og pita pit. Back in highschool they were the spots to hang. Late night always had the weirder people working (as my friends and I were also weird), and it was great.

We’d go there, they’d be blasting whatever music they wanted (often hardcore punk or metal) and we’d all just chill with the employees. Sometimes get some free pitas, maybe go out back and smoke a joint. I’ll miss that og falafel pita…

It felt like the oki-dog of the town I was in.

What I miss can never happen again. There was some mystery of the world lost with the internet. I miss opening a pack of magic cards and that was what you got, no hand picking the best build online. I miss hearing my friend say some bullshit in a game, and the only way to discover the truth was to try it. I am thankful for the speed of information nowadays and how much more accessible the world is. But sometimes I’d like to recapture that magic of the unknown, the closeness of having to converse with others to even guess at the depth of your hobby.

They keep tearing down buildings that have personal significance to me. My grade school, my first job, my favorite skate spots, teenage hangout spots, etc. Some spots became better things but most were turned into parking lots. I know Joni was singing about nature and whatnot, but Big Yellow Taxi hits me hard.

The scent of my grandparents’ house.

It had a very distinctive sweet aroma. I was never sure what is was, and I never asked. The scent followed them when they moved into a condo in a retirement facility. The last time I visited them in their condo was 2019, and they’ve both since passed away.

They gave me a book many years ago, the pages of which used to smell like their house. I know if I dig that book out of storage, it might still have a trace scent in it. But otherwise, it is now just a memory.

The forest near my childhood home. It’s still there. I’m not.

Last summer I went there, and the place was so familiar to me that I recognized individual trees.

All the trees and groves around me to build yet another fucking gas station.

I miss incandescent Christmas lights from the 70s.

the colors they had were warm and magical.

you could go down the street at night and the whole neighborhood was filled with this technicolor dream rainbow that you just can’t make anymore.

Taco Bell and the Quesarito.

Fuuuck, why did they remove it? It was the whole reason to go to Taco Bell!

Dead pets. Miss em. Wish they could have stayed with me forever.

Playing in a band. It’s never been easier to play on my own, and in some ways I think it’s hard to be in a band since it involves a lot of compromise. But I do miss the feeling of regularly playing and making music with friends.

Mechanical fountain soda machines with free refills. This stuff costs like 2 cents and is always the best way to drink soda, but they seem to be dying out and disappearing.

Playing video games with friends. As I get older and tastes diverge it feels hard to get a group together to play games. It’s even more rare to play games together in the same room, staying up late into the night.

Finally, I miss that feeling that life is ahead of me and the ability to focus on dreaming and thinking about the future. As I get older, a lot more stuff is in the rear view mirror, the possibilities of the future seem more limited, and it’s easy to look back and question how you spent all that time in the past. I get more sad and scared thinking about the future, even though I’m sure that good things will happen too.

Seasons 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 of Firefly.

I also miss Sobeys (Canadian grocery chain) Take n Bake pizza. They changed to a new recipe many years ago. I bought one of their new pizzas, it was very disappointing.

I miss places that weren’t overrun with traffic.

I lived in LA right at the end of “it’s LA. Everything is 20 minutes from everything else.” Which was mostly true other than a rush hour that politely lasted from 3:30 to 6:00pm. Only places like The Valley or Long Beach or Montebello/West Covina took 30+ minutes.

Every time I visit now, everything is stop and go traffic. Not just there, every major city. Road infrastructure hasn’t, and can’t realistically, keep up with basic population growth. Sprawl is a disease. It’s urban planning cancer.

I used to have this yellow dress that I loved and I am pretty sure I accidentally donated it like 10 or 15 years ago, but every 6 to 10 months or so I still think about that dress.

The city made my grandparents cut down their weeping willow because it was taller than the electrical lines. That tree was like 40 years old and massive. Then they cut down all of the willows at the city park to build in a stupid marina. We used to have willows.

I wish we could roll back the last 30 years and have a do over. Everything is shit anymore.

There was an helado shop very near where I live now, just a wonderland of flavors, nice lady with a hundred tubs of different interesting mostly fruit flavored ice creams. Not expensive. It’s been gone for years and I still miss it.

Also there was this house I used to pass on my way home that had a crazy paint job, I think it had been orange and someone tried to cover that with green - the result was a house that looked like it was ripening and I just loved to see it. Eventually someone “fixed” it by making it gray, I miss it.