The road was curved as it followed the river, and we followed it, my Nonna and me. She would take me on drives in her green Toyota Avalon, with its beige interior and lambswool seat covers. I would run my fingers through the wool, warm and comfortable, and she would tell me stories from her childhood. We called these "old-time stories," they revolved around her life as one of five children of Italian immigrants growing up in a rural, small town in Western Pennsylvania. The stories she told me were of a close-knit family and community; they were of her sharing a bed with her brothers and sisters, her father buying her a pet goat, and getting fired from her job at the town diner for breaking the milkshake machine. What my Nonna didn't tell me, at least until I was older, was the reason why as soon as she turned 17, she left her family and that small town and never went back. My Nonna's "old-time stories" didn't address the poverty, prejudice, and economic desperation her family felt. "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is an ongoing documentary project which explores economic globalization's long-term effects on former industrial cities and the intersection of depressed economies in small towns throughout America. Inspired by photographers from the "New Topographics" movement and writers of the "Lost Generation," I seek to depict the uncertainty, isolation, and desperation felt across the United States. I am trying to capture those same emotions I felt all those years ago, driving with my Nonna and listening to her talk about her life growing up outside of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. This project is about memory, my memory of her and her memories, sometimes romanticized, sometimes painfully vivid of small-town life.