Pointless Challenge (Reworked)

Pointless: “Devoid of meaning (or) senseless” Merriam-Webster. Yup, that’s this post nicely summarized and while it might seem silly, we love stuff like this. If it’s got an obscure angle, like here, we’re on it even more and although a serious time waster, we can’t help ourselves. Presenting the Pointless Challenge (Reworked edition), and we’re armed with an old photo and in search of a mystery location in Calgary.

It’s in the city and that’s all we know. We don’t plan to simply find the target, but also hoped to shoot an image similarly composed, then chat about the whole experience here. It’s what we do.

This is a post from 2014, given new life and the original photos reused, but expanded upon with additional information. The writing here has never been stellar, but some of our earlier stuff is simply awful and could use updating. Yet, the old articles are kept online, but sort of hidden away so you have to look for them.

This one’s a variation of a BIGDoer.com Then & Now. If you’re a regular reader you have no doubt have seen one of these posts and this might look like any other, but here there’s a bit of a twist. They normally work like this: we get our hands on old photos or postcards, typically showing a street scene, which we then visit to see what things looks like today and post the results in a nice little article. We’ll chat about the history and what’s changed.

In this case, however, there’s an added step that requires a little more thinking. And it hurts worse than a Slurpeehead. Here’s our subject, a nondescript house, one of many tens of thousands in the city and on a similarly unremarkable street. The contributor of the photo only asked us to find it and as sort of a dare. Double-dare? We’re in!

That’s all we got, this snapshot but with no corroborating information. It’s a needle in a haystack challenge but there’s some clues in the photo that’ll help it along. There’s a school in back, the neighbourhood appears relatively new at the time, and the houses pretty easily dated by their architecture. The look says late ’60s/early ’70s.

All we had to do was search out neighbourhoods from the time, look for target area and then refer to Streetview to see what’s going on. We’ve done these Pointless Challenges before and this one made easier than others thanks to all the hints contained in the photo. The hardest Challenge took us months of spare time to find but here it happened quickly.

For a time, eight or tens years ago, people would regularly send us mystery photos like this and we’d search out the location much like what happened here. We asked to be told nothing, by design, and tested ourselves. Then it kind of dried up but we’d sure love do it again. These are special Then & Nows and we did maybe a dozen, of which a few got posted to this website. The rest lived on social media.

The contributor of the old photo mentioned it came from a family album but did not know the house, the person, nor how they came to crash their motorcycle(?). It looks big enough to be something scooter-ish but I guess could be a bicycle too. In any case, the photo and story contained were all unkowns and while we offered to take it further, they said just knowing the location was good enough. Sometimes it’s all you need.

Note how much the vegetation has grown in the interim and it appears some of those little twigs are the giant trees seen today. The house dates from the late 1960s and the neighbourhood clearly very new at the time of the original capture. We’re in SE Calgary and near Southcentre Mall.

We knocked on the door hoping to show the present occupants the then image, but no one answered. Or they saw us and hid with hopes that we’d soon go away. “I see a yellow jacket…and we hear they don’t shut up.” We browsed old phone directories to see who lived here over the years and there’s been several families that called it home. While changed in appearance, it differs little in form from then to now.

If you have an old photo like this, showing a secret location – or even if it’s not, but you want to see if we can find it – why not send it our way. We’d love your help in rebooting this series. The early days at BIGDoer.com were simpler, posts more carefree and we’d love for that vibe to return.

The psychology of it: Doing Pointless Things for Fun.

They’re saying…

”Chris and Connie are the real deal – their adventures are truly interesting and fun!” Justine Cooke.

Then & Now…
CC Snowdon Building Calgary.
Old Slocan Highway by the Lake.
Green Door Ranch Then and Now.

If you wish more information on what’s seen here, don’t hesitate to: contact us!

Date of Adventure: Ca1970 and November 2014.
Location(s): Calgary, Alberta.
Article references and thanks: Stuart for the old photo, Stuart’s folks, his 5th grade teacher, the fallen cycle guy for allowing us a chuckle at his predicament, the City of Calgary, plus the Medicine Hat & District Genealogical Society.

A pointless challenge and the same house ~45 years apart.

It’s time wasting fun.