BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, ENGLAND

In May I traveled with Stewart to the home I lived in as a teenager in England.  It's the first place I ever lived that had a name instead of a house number.  Our address was:
"Beechwood"
Tyler's Green
Penn
Buckinghamshire
England

The house, which is several hundred years old, is still standing

although it looks a little run down and the back yard is now part of a housing complex built where our neighbors, the Busby's, had their nursery.

The ground level first floor window was our dining room and I think the upstairs bay window was Ralph and Willard's room.

This end of the house was the bedroom I shared with Connie.  It had a windows then.

We returned on Sunday to attend the High Wycombe Ward about a mile down the street.  My dad and brother, Ralph, did a lot of work building the chapel the year we lived there.  Connie, Willard and I were marginally helpful and we had a lot of great experiences there.  I was so excited to see the people I knew forty years ago.

Unfortunately, everyone I knew was either too old and sick to attend church or dead.  I was surprised that the bishop had the same last name of one of my sketchy 18-year-old friends, Ian.  And I was more surprised when I found the bishop is his son!  (He's standing with the blue tie.)

You just can't return to the past.  But I appreciated being able to try.

We stayed in nearby Marlowe and walked to the locks.  Good memories of an overnight boat trip our family took down the Thames in 1973.