Martinjmpr
Wiffleball Batter
Dipping back into this thread...there's a special category of "abandoned places" and that would be places that we were familiar with when they were busy, bustling and full of people and have since been abandoned.
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Those of us who've been in the military probably experience that more than almost anyone else. Military camps and bases are opened, used, and then closed pretty frequently.
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Lately I've been doing some "google earthing" particularly using Street View (which may be the internet's greatest distraction that's not pRon) and took some screen shots of Taszar Airbase in Hungary. Reading up a little bit I see that the US withdrew their last forces from Taszar in 2004 and some time in 2008 or 2009 the Hungarian government was trying to find a buyer for the facility.
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As eerie as "ordinary" abandoned places are, that eerie factor is doubled or tripled when it's a place that we know from our own memory and can easily imagine full of people, vehicles, noise, and action. Seeing the streets that were swept by traffic and marching boots now cracked and empty with grass growing in the middle feels odd. Not "sad" exactly - after all, the closing of a military base because the war is over ought to be a good thing - but melancholy, I guess, perhaps because it reminds us of the passing of time and the fact that one day we, too, will just be a memory.
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Anyway, here's the main gate of Taszar airfield. I wish I had some pictures of the gate when I was there. I may have some somewhere but this was in 1997-98, the era before digital cameras and I wasn't as promiscuous about using film as I am about snapping digital photos. I can't even count the number of times I rolled through this gate between October of 1997 and April of 1998.
.
.
Those of us who've been in the military probably experience that more than almost anyone else. Military camps and bases are opened, used, and then closed pretty frequently.
.
Lately I've been doing some "google earthing" particularly using Street View (which may be the internet's greatest distraction that's not pRon) and took some screen shots of Taszar Airbase in Hungary. Reading up a little bit I see that the US withdrew their last forces from Taszar in 2004 and some time in 2008 or 2009 the Hungarian government was trying to find a buyer for the facility.
.
As eerie as "ordinary" abandoned places are, that eerie factor is doubled or tripled when it's a place that we know from our own memory and can easily imagine full of people, vehicles, noise, and action. Seeing the streets that were swept by traffic and marching boots now cracked and empty with grass growing in the middle feels odd. Not "sad" exactly - after all, the closing of a military base because the war is over ought to be a good thing - but melancholy, I guess, perhaps because it reminds us of the passing of time and the fact that one day we, too, will just be a memory.
.
Anyway, here's the main gate of Taszar airfield. I wish I had some pictures of the gate when I was there. I may have some somewhere but this was in 1997-98, the era before digital cameras and I wasn't as promiscuous about using film as I am about snapping digital photos. I can't even count the number of times I rolled through this gate between October of 1997 and April of 1998.
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