I grew up on a small farm in north-east Ohio. I often get nostalgic for the place(even though it’s changed so much as to barely resemble the original land) I had what some would call an idyllic chldhood. Woods to run and climb in, a near-by river to swim in and boat on, our own garden produce to eat and, of course, plenty of work in the fresh air.
That’s my story. What’s yours?
Do you miss your original home? (Unless you’re still there,which would also be interesting). Do you miss old friends, or now find them tiresome? Still visit your home town? Did you wind up in a completely unexpected place that you like/don’t like? If you could be 10 years old again, would you want to re-do it in your home town, given what you know now?
Any rememberances will do.
I consider Tallahassee my home, even though I only lived there for about 8 years. I met some of the bestfriends I’ve ever had there, and I still talk to several of them. I visit about once a year, and i’m thinking about moving back down there this summer to room up with a friend of mine. I have a lot of good memories there, some bad ones as well, but overall, I remember it fondly. Whenever I leave, it brings a tear to my eye, and I can’t helpbut think what it might have been like had I not moved my junior year.I don’t care for Boston much, but who knows. If I go back to Tally, maybe it’ll make up for lost times. We’ll see.
Interesting. I was just thinking about this subject this past weekend. Up until I was 9, I lived in the typical mid-western suburbian neighborhood. We lived in a decent ranch-styled house. I lived only 1 block from school and walked there everyday. All my friends lived within a couple of blocks and I could easily walk or ride my bike to any of their houses. We were close enough to Kalamazoo that it wasn’t a long drive anywhere. It was what I would call the perfect place to grow up.
At 9 yrs old, we moved to the very outskirts of the county. We moved to a lake which my brother and I enjoyed immensly, but there were next to no kids around, it was over a mile to the nearest kid that was even close to my age. We had to change school systems, so all my old friends were gone and I knew nobody, and I had to ride the bus into school every day. Overall, it was a major social shock for me. I ended up losing touch with all my good friends and had to deal with having nobody around to play with. In the end, I became the person I am today because of this move.
I found myself thinking what would happen if I never moved away from my original neighborhood. I wouldn’t be the person I am today. All of the things that happened to me make me ME! Would I want to have done things differently? Probably not, knowing I would not be who I am today, but I do get nostalgic and drive through the old neighborhood once in awhile, wondering what the old house looks like, and retracing my walk to the old school.
I grew up in Iceland and I never, ever, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever want to go back there. I will have to go for funerals and stuff like that, but that’s it.
It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad place
I live in China now, have lived in England and Holland too, god knows what country the future will bring.
Like the OP, I grew up in a small town and have moved away. Also like the OP, I grew nostalgic. I even went so far as to look into business opportunities in my hometown. I was close to obtaining financing for a venture I wanted to start.
But then I took my son and wife to visit for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t long before I was reminded of the things I hated about the town and the narrow-minded and bigoted opinions of my family that led me to leave in the first place. I scraped the idea of moving back home.
If you lefty our hometown for a reason, be sure to verify whether that reason is still valid and still exists.
I grew up in Mount Vernon in Baltimore City. It’s a very nice community a few blocks north of the Inner Harbor. This weekend, we moved back there to a very nice apartment/townhome community.
I missed Mount Vernon when I left it. I always wanted to move back. I’m glad I did. When we move from Mount Vernon, it will be to go to Federal Hill or Otterbein (both are a couple of blocks from the Inner Harbor).
Mount Vernon is cool because you can walk to almost any ethnic restaurant you can think of. I can walk to and from work. The main branch of the library is within walking distance, so is the Peabody conservatory and the Walters Art Gallery. There’s also a nifty health food store, The Green Earth, as well a small park where the kids can play. We can even walk to the private school my oldest son will be attending.
I love city life, and as Bob as my witless, I’m never moving to the 'burbs again!
What I do miss, however, is the town where Mamma O and her mother grew up - a little burg just outside of Northampton, MA. I spent a week every summer down there at my grandparents’ house (which my grandfather built from a used Quonset hut) and I have some really great childhood memories from those times.
I’ve often thought of moving back there and restoring the house; it would be nice to be close to a college town but far enough out where it’s quiet and woodsy enough to be able to sit in the backyard of an evening and think.
But first I’d take Homebrew’s advice and spend some time there to check it out. See if I like the place as an adult just as much as I did when I was a kid.
Of course Mrs. O seems dead set against living in rural western Massachusetts so it’ll probably never happen.
I literally cannot go home again. My hometown of 900 people was wiped out by the Great Flood of 1993. The town was re-settled on former farmland purchased out of the floodplain.
My hometown was a great place for a kid. I climbed bluffs, biked for miles without worrying about traffic, romped in babbling creeks, played with all the neighborhood kids at the park. We used to play soft-toss baseball every single day of the summer on a makeshift ball diamond at the park. Do you see that happen anymore? I don’t.
Now, when I go home to visit Mom (about a 45 minute-drive), the new town is like any modern suburbian neighborhood. It doesn’t have the same character or possibilities of childhood fun.
Clucky, I am not far from the place you speak of.
~
I still live in the town I grew up in. The house I lived in was falling down, we moved out ~15 yrs ago, two guys who were carpenters move in and fixed it up nice, and then wrecked it during a wild party. The city later comdemned it and the house was removed and the yard flattened. The property is rather small and odd-shaped and has subsidence problems; it’s not likely anyone else would put up a new house on it. I assumed that someone adjacent would purchase it, but I heard a few years ago that the property was still tied up in court for some reason.
~
All the other houses in the entire neighborhood are still there, but mine is gone. - MC
Until I was 10 I lived in a neighborhood that straddled the line between blue-collar and middle-class. My sister’s best friend, as well as one of the kids next door, got married while still in high school due to unplanned pregnancies (that’s how they used to be handled.) At the time we moved out, the area was being hard hit by layoffs.
I liked living there a lot, but over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that had we stayed there, I probably would have run more with the “rougher” crowd, maybe not have wanted to go to college, and in general gone down a different path.
I grew up in a strange little neighborhood in Southwest Los Angeles, bounded on 3 sides by LAX, bluffs/wetlands, and a beach community. Which basically meant nobody knew it existed and it was peaceful and calm.
My childhood was spent playing safely in the streets from morning to night. Lots of old folks lived there, so our schools were actually under-populated. So they bussed in kids from over-crowded schools in South Central and Watts.
I look at it as a perfect urban childhood. The innocence of a care-free home life tempered with a more gritty reality at school. Where else could you hope to experience both bodysurfing and drive-bys in one lifetime?
I miss greater Los Angeles (I live in the Bay Area) but really couldn’t imagine living in that neighborhood again. I think that the isolation keeps it less interesting. I still visit my parents often and that place will always seem like home to me.
ageless6, like you, I grew up in Ohio(Dayton, in fact). I moved out as soon as I realized I was free to leave. I live in Los Angeles and I would not consider moving back to Ohio. I would’nt even visit(mostly because of the heinous weather). Hell, I don’t need to. I’ve met more Ohioans in L.A. than I did when I lived in Ohio.
I’m told that I wouldn’t recognize the place now, anyway. Nothing stays like it was in our memories.
I could never live in LA (lower Alabama) again. I tried to go back a few years ago and found that not one thing changed. We moved from AL my freshman year of high school (to No. VA) I was and still am a little to country for DC, only now I’m to “citified” for Alabama. When I went home to look into moving back I discovered that the bible belt was no longer somewhere I could fit in. I don’t go to church, and “oh my god your 28 and still not married!!!”
All my school friends got married fresh out of high school, started having kids right away and look at me as if I am some sort of Jezebel for being single, for having a career, for not being a good, church going, bible-thumping, baby making, proper southern girl. But I do get very nostalgic for those simpler, childhood pleasures.
