Nostalgia for a Time that Never Really Was

I know it dates me, but I love watching the re-runs of Almost Live after SNL  It makes me nostalgic for the era when there were fewer strip malls, arrogant microserfs and ironic hipsters. It was just Seattle, the place all fictional characters go when they have to move.When only three blocks from my childhood home, stood a forest rumored to have bears walking around.  It reminds me other Center with the bubble elevator and the Fun Forest, the ornate displays outside of Fredrick and Nelsons. A time when Ballard really was made up of Scandinavians, Renton was a working class semi-hick town, when working people could afford a house near the University district which now would cost at least half a million.  I remember when traffic jams in  Woodinville were rare. Now every neighborhood looks roughly the same and despite the huge number of choices we can make, most people choose to be similar to one another. Everyone has the same cars, same three or four different styles of clothing and hair. I even had a teacher who kept sheep just off of what is now a main intersection of 405. I remember when nights were silent except for frogs and crickets or rain. Now, I can hear traffic from the main road twenty two out of twenty-four hours a day.I miss that space, the quiet, the different neighborhoods good or bad.  I drive down roads which used to have a grocery and maybe a feed store or burger stand and they are wall to wall nail salons, and chain stores. Now, this part of the world is just like anywhere else really.