I was visiting a younger friend in Raleigh after not seeing her for several years.  I had not been to Raleigh for a long time.  She was showing me all the new sites of Raleigh."Let's go out to Grissom"s Lake." I said, remembering all the good times we had there years ago.

"Where?  I"ve never heard of it", she said, "and I've been here several years."  "Oh, it's off  Grissom Lake Road," I said, " Years ago we went the often."  So we drove out Capital Blvd to Grissom Lake Road.  Capital Blvd. had really changed.  I'm not sure it was even called that when it was a two lane road.

"There it is," she said  as  we crossed a railroad with a sign"Lake Grissom Road" on the other side.  As we rode, I remembered when  four of us came out here after work as we did often.  Charcoal grills had just gotten in the stores and we had bought a portable one.  We took the grill, charcoal and four large steaks ( they cost much less then).

We set up the grill, tried to light the charcoal and waited.  Back then we did not have "match lite".  The charcoal took forever to get started.  Finally the sun went down and it got dark.  There were no lights close so we were left cooking the steaks by the charcoal light.  When we thought they were probably cooked , we were so hungry that we could have eaten them raw, and maybe did since it was difficult to see in the dark.  They tasted delicious nontheless.  After eating we all went home with our memories.

My friend and I were almost at the end of Grissom Lake Road now.  There were many new looking condos, several nice housing suburbs  and what looked like a quarry with a large fence around it.  There was no lake. 

We drove all the way back to the railroad.  There was a pretty antique shop on the right.  so we decided to go in and ask where to find the Lake.   "What's left of it is behind this building,"  she said.(hence the picture.)   The lake itself is no more."  I didn't ask what happened to it the last fifty years because the lady herself only looked about thirty years of age.

"Well, at least we know where it used to be," I said.  " I should have known it would have changed after all these years.  That is the inevitability of change.  The good times we had there are still preserved deep in my memory.  That is the importance of preservation.

'