Alma, Arkansas. It's where my first memories were created.
It may not be where you were born, but you consider it your hometown. What place is it and why?
Tough call. I have lived in three cities and all have reason to be my "hometown".
(edited for TMI)
If pressed, I'd say London, where I have lived for the past 20 years, is my Hometown, though Kitchener, where I was born and raised, is still near and dear to my heart. That said, Seeker, Jr. is already talking USA for grad studies and career due to the field he's in and if that happens, we may follow someday.
Nottinghamshire.
I moved there when I married my husband.
Ottumwa, Iowa is my hometown and I am thankful I grew up in the Midwest. Friendly and polite and not nearly as conservative as it's made out to be. And, at the time, a great school system.
New York City, though, will always have a pull on my soul. That was where I spent my young adulthood.
Petersburg, Indiana.
One stoplight for most of my life, though it was up to 3 by the time I moved. The Moose Lodge had a hitching post out back that saw regular use.
Giant flathead catfish and big old channel cats in the White River, if you were lucky enough to have a grandfather who knew where to find them at the bottom of 90 degree, five foot high sections of the bank.
If you took time to explore, you could cross four counties without your tires touching pavement for more than a few seconds.
Dodge City, a riverside community comprised as much by converted buses as houses — all up on stilts — so named because of the two Dodge City signs stolen from Kansas eons before, and used to mark the limits of the unofficial community. Every imaginable type of street and advertising sign decorated the trees and power poles between. Many of the cabins and other dwellings still had outhouses in use, and probably do to this day. If you had an in such as a locally famous fisherman grandfather, you could make good money selling snapping turtles that you had let sit in five gallon buckets of clean water for a couple of days to flush all the muck out of them.
Take the correct left turn after passing through Dodge City, and you're on Stink Road. There is where many locals took their giant flatheads, hung them from the trees, and cleaned them. After driving around all day showing them off to everyone, of course. Massive sun-bleached skulls hanging from worn rope all along the road. A macabre trophy case for generations.
Not far away were Augusta Pit and Killer Pit, where you could hurl yourself off 40 and 60 foot cliffs to the water far below. For the less adventurous who couldn't handle the big cliff at Augusta — Lardass — there was the 10 foot high Little One, and the Stair Steps. For the insane, there was the cliff called Near Miss. So named because there was a giant bolder sticking out from the cliff, and if you were lucky, you barely missed it on the way down. The rope swing up on the cliff could send you flying halfway across the pit.
In the opposite direction you could find Titty Pits, The Road Between The Two Ponds, ( which was often as not, the road in the two ponds ) and Mile-long Pond. The farmers who were the only residents of the area had a strict MYOB policy. The treacherous and sometimes underwater roads meant that only the most adventurous of Bunny Cops would attempt the journey. So if you had jacked-up trucks, you could have underage drinking parties with virtually no chance of getting busted. Even if they did come out, you could see the headlights from miles away, and hide everybody underage before they arrived.
The spillway off Pride's Creek was the ultimate place to take kids on their first fishing trip. Barely 10 foot wide in any direction, it was absolutely crammed with fish. In such crowded conditions, competition was fierce. You could stick anything on a hook and get a bite. Suction cup plastic bats from the 25 cent machines at the grocery store. A chunk of broken shoe lace. The ribbon string of a mylar birthday balloon. Anything. Crappie, Bluegill, Yellow Belly Catfish, Small Mouth Bass... They were all in there.
Folks were not amused when they built a golf course at Pride's Creek and tried to restrict access to that spillway.
The beach at Pride's Creek, with all the girls in their bikinis. Old Ben Scout Reservation, where the campsite Troop #241 cleared and established is officially and perpetually reserved for us and our progeny, whenever we want to use it, a short jaunt from the mess hall. The cabin at Parker's Lake. The pool at Petersburg elementary, where every time Jump by Van Halen would come over the speakers, you could be sure that Tuba would climb the high dive and do a butt-buster that would splash half the water out of the pool and wash small children up on the deck. Sadly, the pool and the school were both demolished in the tornado of 1990, which immediately followed torrential rains that left the Moose Baseball Field under four feet of White River water.
Still have my "Hell or High Water" t-shirt, as well as a 40 ounce bottle of donated water from Miller, and a 12 oz. can donated by Budweiser.
I digress. Petersburg is home, and always will be. Need the assistance of the family that moved up here to watch my autistic son while I'm at work, or my ass would absolutely be right back down there where I truly belong.
My hometown is not far from Alma, Arkansas. I was born and raised there. Left after high school. I have mixed feelings about the place. Still visit once a year. I have lived in my present city for 21 years and my only child was born here. So it feels like home now.
I always thought your hometown was where you grew up, no matter where or for how long you lived elsewhere. After graduating from university I moved to Los Angeles and lived there most of my life. I then moved to a small town in Mexico for twenty years, but I came back here to Tampa, where I grew up because this is where my family is.
I've lived here for 20 years, and it feels more like home than most places. I'm in the middle of nowhere in the New Mexico desert. The roof leaks, the pipes freeze, sometimes I can't get out even with 4wheel drive, but ... There is only one neighbour close enough to borrow my tools, I know the sheriff and several of his deputies, there is very little crime, it's mostly dry and warm, and there are hardly any mosquitos.
I was born in Dover, Delaware but I didn't stay long. I grew up in a military family and we moved often.
Only when we moved to the Washington DC metro area did I feel like I was home. My father retired and we got to stay in one place longer than a year.
Home for me is in Northern Virginia now. I got married here, raised my children here. It will always be my home even if I do move at some point.
Hastings. Shit hole on the East Coast. Less than 100,000 people. Hella boring.
I grew up scuba diving so I'll always feel at home on a boat or under water.
Vancouver, B.C., Canada will always be my hometown; I do call Seattle, WA, USA home now, though, and have for several years. Dual citizenship is a wonderful thing.
Want to spend some time wallowing in a Recommended Read? Pick one! Or two! Or seven!
Spent most of my life in the south, but the west is home
Spent all but one year of my life in Aberdeen, Scotland.
I grew up in a small town on the coast of Newfoundland. My parents still live there. The town itself is beautiful and peaceful, there is a picture or two in my photo gallery that I took while I was home.
When I get the need to want to get away, home is the first place I go. I Love nature and enjoy walking on the two nature trails there and the next time I go back my poem that I wrote about the town will be seen along with other writers along the trail.
"Yeah, we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun." John Lennon
Take a look at my new poem for the competition:
West Hollywood, CA USA is where I was born and raised. I moved to my own place when I turned 18 and still live in WEHO.
I don't see myself living elsewhere in the states but would relocate to Russia.
I was born and raised and still live and work in Cheyenne, Wyoming.........My parents moved here before I was born and loved it so much they named me Cheyenne lol. I will live my life out here.
I was born in eastern Massachusetts and lived there until I was five, whereupon my Dad was transferred to his employer's UK operation. We spent seven years there, then moved back to the US and settled in Western Massachusetts. We lived in a bucolic little town of about a thousand people, with one tiny general store and a part-time cop. Next door, however, was the college town of Amherst (UMASS, Hampshire College, and Amherst College), which I will always think of as my beloved home. It has the advantages of a big city, with a cosmopolitan atmosphere, music, art, culture, without the disadvantages like pollution, crowding, and crime (although it does have the disadvantage of being a pretty expensive place to live).
Growing up, I would hear other kids say "I can't wait to get out of here," and I always thought they must be deranged. To me, it is the perfect place to live.
Unfortunately, for what seemed good and sound reasons at the time, I have moved further and further away; New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and now Minneapolis, MN. I will never leave Minneapolis; my wife loves it here, and my autistic daughter has never known another home. To wrench her away from here would be worse for her than the wrench I feel every time I think of home, which is regularly. So as long as I am respectively husband and father, Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders. Gotter helfe mir.
Right now, I can't even afford to visit, but I do have plans to be buried back home.
Excuse me; I need to go cry now...
My roots originated in France. In my travels to France, I feel right at home, like the whole country is my hometown, with one city (not Paris) in particular generating that feeling. I speak the language reasonably well, and the natives are welcoming of that, from an "américain".
Otherwise, I live in the PNW, États-Unis.
When I think of “my home town”, the place that comes to mind would be Bremerton, WA. I don’t expect most people to have any idea where that is so I just say that I’m from Seattle. Truthfully, I haven’t resided there since a period of months after college while I looked for a job (and haven’t been a resident of that state since 2009 so I could get in-state tuition in Montana) but it’s where my immediately family still lives. It’s where I grew up and where most of my childhood friends have put down roots (well, those that didn’t permanently hop the ferry over to Seattle). Plus it’s where I try to celebrate as many Christmases and Thanksgivings as I can.
My home (and specifically the house that I own) is way out in North Dakota but I wouldn’t consider this to be my home town. I love it here but I am definitely a transplant through and through. Perhaps in a decade I’ll feel differently and call this “my home town” but certainly not at the moment.
I can’t think of a good tagline so this will have to do. Suggest a better one for me?
A little (and I do mean little) backwards town on the banks of the Main—Marktsteft, Germany. Besides being where I learned to walk and swim, it birthed my love of Gummi Bears.