Whether your answer is yes or no, tell me more.
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)?
Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)?
Do/did you love it or hate it?
If you don’t have one, are you glad or sad about that-- or something else?
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)?
Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like.
—I lived there all my life until I finished high school, my parents still lived there 51 years later when my mother died there.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)?
–After going to college, I went back there the next two summers, but never lived there, nor near there, after that.
Do/did you love it or hate it?
– It was an OK town to grow up in, but I’d never want to live there now.
If you don’t have one, are you glad or sad about that-- or something else?
—I left there 60 years ago, but the four houses my family lived in are still there, with neighborhoods intact. I’m very glad about that, that I can go back and see the geogaphy of my childhood. One of the houses I lived in is now of historical importance, and being restored, and the owners were delighted to have me do a walk-through and describe what it was like when I lived there 60 years earlier.
The town is Waupun, Wisconsin.
Yeah - born and raised in Chicago, part of me considers myself a Chicagoan, even tho I’ve lived in the burbs the past 30 years. Just something different about the city experience which molds and stays with you.
-Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like.
At this time I don’t think I have any family I keep in touch with in the city itself.
-When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)?
1960-78 - through high school, and summers the first couple of years of college.
-Do/did you love it or hate it?
Neither, really. It was just what I was used to. I think it was a more varied experience than my kids have had in the lily-white upper middle class burbs. But I don’t want to move back there.
I feel I do have a hometown.
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)?
It was where I spent my childhood and went to primary school and graduated. I even spent parts of a couple more years there after high school. It was where I spent my formative years. I had a lot of fun in that town.
Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like.
My parents and brother as well as my grandmother and an aunt and cousin lived there. Now it’s down to just my mom and brother.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)?
1967 to roughly 1987
Do/did you love it or hate it?
I really loved that little town. It was a great place to grow up.
One question I would add would be: Would you go back and live there if you could?
I would have to answer no on that. It’s no longer the town I grew up in. It has changed dramatically and not for the better.
Kimball, South Dakota, in case you were wondering.
I would say the town in Connecticut where I graduated high school. I lived there from third grade until I graduated college (not counting when I was actually at college) and it’s where my dad still lives. Even when I meet new people who happen to be from there, we still share the same sort of connection people who find out they went to the same college or summer camp have.
I wouldn’t necessarily live there simply because I don’t really know anyone there anymore (except people my parent’s age). And it is sort of dull compared to living in and around NYC.
I don’t really feel like I have one, and this is why:
Born in Paris, France. (My parents were studying there (they are Peruvian, Italian and Spanish, not French).
Lima, Perú - at 6 months of age
Lima to Barcelona - age 5 - 7.5
Bogotá, Colombia - age 7.5 - 8.5
Back to Lima - age 8.5 - 10
Back to Bogotá - age 10-12
Toronto - age 12 - 19 (learned Englsih)
I moved to Houston, Texas when I was 19 when I left Toronto. Yes, I know…don’t ask.
Since then I have lived in various cities:
New Orleans, Mexico D.F. for a couple of months, Metropolitan Detroit, Charlotte, North Carolina, Santa Fe and Corrales, New Mexico, Fort Walton Beach, Florida and finally where I currently reside in Oregon.
Even though I have been here for almost 16 years, I don’t feel that it is home in the same way that most people feel a place is “home.”
It’s just where I am geographically speaking, that’s all.
My family is all over the globe. Mexico, Panamá, Berlin, Barcelona, Chile, Tokyo. Most, however, are in Lima. My fondest memories may be from there, so if I had to make myself think of a place as “home,” I suppose that would be it even though I only lived there a total of 7 years or so…four of which I barely remember.
Ok, now I’m kind of bummed out.
Born in Chicago, and lived there from then til I was 29, then lived in Waukegan til 2010. I moved back to Chicago, back to the same house I lived in from the time I was 10. I very much consider Chicago to be my hometown.
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)?
Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)?
Do/did you love it or hate it?
I would not live there now, as it is still a very small town and I prefer living in a city. I don’t have any reason to visit now, but I do miss going back there.
Yes, I have a hometown. Never did until I was about 27, (moved all over as a kid, college, a couple different places for a year or so) but have been here ever since.
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)?
Lived here for a long tome, two kids born and raised and schooled here, and both going to college here.
**Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like. **
Yes, see above.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)?
Age 27 until now. (20+ years)
Do/did you love it or hate it?
Absolutely love it.
If you don’t have one, are you glad or sad about that-- or something else?
n/a
Boulder, CO
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)?
Lived there for a the longest time, after an early life of military assignments.
**Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like. **
Some of my oldest and dearest friends are there, but it’s a university town and people come and go.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)?
Off and on (mostly on) since the mid 70’s.
Do/did you love it or hate it?
Loved it, and would still be there if the winters were milder.
Champaign, Illinois
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)?
I consider Sacramento to be my hometown, because it is the town I have lived in the longest. I don’t feel any real connection to the San Jose/Peninsula area even though I lived there from birth to age 15. I spent my high school years in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento, but don’t feel a strong connection to that area either.
**Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like. **
I have in-laws who live in town and blood relatives who live in the “greater Sacramento area”. My closest friends also live in this area.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)? Do/did you love it or hate it?
I have been a resident since 1993, but also went to college here 87-92. I very much like the area. I don’t foresee moving any time soon.
If you don’t have one, are you glad or sad about that-- or something else?
N/A
My parents live here, their families live here, my wife and her nuclear and extended families live here, and few of the above have lived anywhere else. My hometown is a very family-oriented city.
My college town feels like a second hometown. Just 25 miles away but so different, a small town in the middle of farm country instead of a larger industrial city. I stayed there for eleven years after graduation before moving back to my hometown.
No, I don’t have a hometown. I did live in the same house from birth into college, and I refer to that town as “where I grew up”, but my family has moved away (and it wasn’t my parents’ hometown either). The few people I still know from there I either don’t see, or see when they visit here.
The small city I grew up in is one of those where if you weren’t native, you never really fit in. Same thing up here but I don’t feel bad since I knew I was coming into it as a flatlander.
I’m glad about it – it makes me free to go where I want, and not get too attached.
Hells yeah, and I haven’t live there for 25 years, nor does anyone I grew up with still live there. Maybe it has to do with how a person feels about the subsequent or present place they live. I have now lived in my current state longer than I did my state of origin, but I will always consider myself a Californian / Angeleno.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio. Grew up just south of the city in a town about ten miles south of the Lake, just off I-77 (which didn’t exist until I was about 12…we had Route 21 then instead).
Left at 17 for college in SW Connecticut, then moved straight to NYC. Lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn since 1982.
I still consider Cleveland my “hometown.” I’m proud of its Bohemian associations (check out d.a. levy’s poetry, R. Crumb and Harvey Pekar’s comics work), the stone cold bizarre popular culture (Ghoulardi, Barnaby the Elf – Linn Sheldon, not the animated one – Mister Jingaling), and the best of the Big Five U.S. orchestras.
I don’t think I could ever move back. It’s a dying city. I have a sister and a nephew there. The last time I drove in from the west I took Route 6 along the lakefront and was surprised by some of the nicer parts of the city I’d never seen as a child.
And I can’t get kielbasa from the finest sausage makers in NYC that matches the stuff they sell in any meat market in Cleveland.
Yes, I have a hometown.
On what basis do you consider it your hometown (if you have one)? Both sides of my family have lived there for decades, one side has lived there for more than 100 years.
Do/did you have family there? Define family any way you like. Yes.
When did you live there and for how long (assuming you did live there at some point)? I was born in another city while my father was in college, but I lived there from the time I was about 2 until I was 6 years old.
Do/did you love it or hate it? I love my hometown, but am saddened by the decay that currently grips it. There has been a steady exodus of people and jobs for more than 40 years now and despite the best efforts of the residents, the city will likely never be the thriving place it was when I was a kid.
While I was born in Juneau, AK, I spent my formative years (10-20) in Anchorage and I consider that to be my hometown. I loved living there back then, not quite so much when I returned 30 years later. I still have family there, although it’s now in the form of nephews, nieces, and their children, my immediate family having all died: most recently, my brother this past August.
I don’t intend to ever move back there again, but it will always be the place that I call ‘my hometown’.
I’ve lived in within the city limits of Sacramento all of my 48 years, so it’s definitely my hometown.
When I was a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up and move someplace more exciting…by the time I grew up I was quite happy here, and continue to be.
I envy those of you who have true real roots. I wonder what my life would’ve been like had I grown up in one place. From reading your posts I’ve realized that the meaning of home can really mean something different from person to person.
I have raised two kids in this city where I now live. It is here in the Willamette Valley where I finally became grounded, and where I’m making a life with a wonderful man. I suppose this IS a version of “home.”
I’m not sure why, but this topic makes me stupidly sentimental, teary-eyed even.
Yes I do. I lived there for 8 years growing up, up until the end of 6th grade in 1973. It is the first place I remember living. I do not, ans did not, have family there other than my immediate family in the same house. I have very fond memories from there, and I liked living there.