The house on Memory Lane

Before the Internet made everyone an author, writers recall ed their early lives in memoirs and autobiographies thinly disguised as novels. But when Brad Ford decided it was time to backtrack to the comfort zone of his childhood, he logged onto MySpace.com and created the Homeward Bound Project.

The 26-year-old Cape Cod native wants to buy back his childhood home in South Harwich that is for sale -- again. But as a liquor store clerk , Ford can't afford the $1,795,000 asking price. So electronic bulletin board that it is, Ford is using his MySpace page to solicit donations, at $1 a piece, to help him.

As Ford writes, the house's monetary cost is nothing compared to its emotional wealth. "My grandmother was the person who raised me," he said on the site, "and it was a sad day for me when we sold the house, because that's the home I grew up in." His grandmother died in 1992 after a five-month battle with bladder cancer. It was a rude end to a happy childhood spent there.

The three-bedroom cedar-shingled Cape-style house is on Uncle Venies Road, just a quarter mile from Red River Beach. It has been sold four times since the family was forced to give it up in 1993 for $385,000, Ford said.

Growing up near the ocean, summers at a vacation home, even holiday trips often exert a powerful hold on memories as people get older, and some find they cannot ignore the call. Cape Cod, it seems, has a special grip.

"This is a unique place and the same faces from childhood keep popping up," said Jerry Chambers, who left the Cape after he graduated from Sandwich High School and went to college. After living in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, five years ago Chambers moved back to his hometown, and is now a broker at Beach Realty in Sandwich. "I can't put my finger on exactly what it is that makes me love the Cape so much. I just know that when I leave and especially when I am in a city, I count my blessing that I am fortunate enough to live where there are trees, beautiful historic homes, and scenic roads like Route 6A, and the water is so close in any direction you drive."

Tim Lewis is another realtor who followed his childhood memories back to Cape Cod. Lewis spent seven years in Colorado after graduating from Boston College, but it was his love of the ocean, particularly fishing, that prompted him to move back to Harwichport.

"My childhood nostalgia was generally based around my summers on the Cape. When I'd come home from the mountains, I always headed to Harwichport for a few days of 'me' time to clear my head," the 32-year-old Lewis said. "It's amazing to see the faces from childhood who I knew from summers down here, who have done the same thing I did."

Many people with similar memories simply can't afford to or don't have the ability to move back to the Cape. Others are either content to let them remain the stuff of daydreams, or to frame an image of them by, for example, buying one of the gorgeous landscapes photographer Joel Meyerowitz has taken of the Cape over the years.

"There are always people who buy images for the pleasure of memories from time spent on the Cape," said Meyerowitz, a New Yorker who has been photographing Cape Cod since 1976.

Both Lewis and Chambers are unusual among the former vacationers who long to move back to the Cape: they are young. More common are older professionals who turn vacation homes into year-round residences after they stop working, or new retirees who relocate to the Cape altogether.

And for all the unspoiled sunsets captured by Meyerowitz and dreamy memories of barefoot summers spent in humble cottages, the Cape Cod of today is a much more settled, suburban place. The year-round population has exploded -- 21 percent in the last 15 years -- and many main roads host traffic jams to rival those of Boston and New York City and other urban areas that Cape drivers have escaped from.

Even simpler changes in the landscape are enough to rudely dash the hopeful anticipation some former vacationers have of revisiting their childhood idylls. For Maureen Silverleib, that was her grandparent's cottage in Yarmouth, where she spent summers. Now 35 and living in Easton, Silverleib recently found herself in that area of the Cape and got the idea to retrace those happy times by finding the house.

"It has changed completely," she said of her disappointing discovery. The cottages were a different color from the summer white she had remembered, the beach was encroaching on nearby streets, and there was no sign of a footbridge to the beach.

"I was shocked by how much it changed," she said. "I actually called my mother and said, 'Are you sure this is the right address?' I don't think I would ever have a need to go back there again. I prefer my memories of what it used to be."

As for Brad Ford, his family's former home on Uncle Venies Road isn't the same either. It is advertised as an "upscale beach house," with high-speed Internet connections throughout, "imported granite kitchen with Viking and Sub Zero appliances" and a pool and hot tub outside.

The land had also been split up and sold off, adding more homes that further cloud the ocean views. Landscaping has removed trees and altered the natural lie of the land.

But, brimming with optimism, Ford said he is not put off by the new look; indeed he even likes the changes. "The changes do not matter to me, because the house itself is still in the same place that I grew up. And the integrity of the house is still there."

In the few weeks since he's posted his quixotic quest and requested donations, Ford has only a few bucks to show from friends. Undeterred, he takes inspiration from Kyle MacDonald, celebrated on the Internet for using a red paper clip to initiate a series of trades that resulted in his owning a home in Saskatchewan ( oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com). Another Internet role model: former teen television star Dustin Diamond, who sold T-shirts on his web site to help stave off foreclosure of his Wisconsin home.

Ford said his efforts are not solely to reclaim his past. It's all about the future and moving on, which includes marrying his girlfriend of seven years, Courtney, in the house in which his mother and father were married, and also coming to terms with the loss of his beloved grandmother, Priscilla.

"What's most important about buying the house," he said quietly, "is I would like to get the closure I need since my grandmother died. I think that can only happen by going back and living there."