Just listened to Seals and Crofts’* We May Never Pass This Way Again* and thought of my hometown.
I visit my folks there almost every week to go out for lunch on Saturdays–it’s just two towns down the road from me.
So, given that many of us may not even have a place that we consider a “hometown,” do you still visit your hometown?
I moved across the country, but would make the trip back often to visit my mother while she was living. However, there are not direct relatives living there now, so I don’t have any reason to visit, other than the cemetery, I suppose. I do intend to get back at some point, when I’m in the area, but don’t have any solid plans.
Three possible hometowns. Short answer, “no.”
Location one. 0 to 6 months. Never visit
Location two. 6 months to 12 years. Visited once about 10 years ago for an event.
Location three 12 years to 18 years. Would visit occasionally for a few years while my mother still lived there. Have not been back in 35 years. No reason to.
I moved across the country after college. My sister moved to another state for grad school and stayed there after she graduated. My parents moved back to their home state after they retired. None of my relatives actually live in my hometown anymore. Likewise my old high school friends have pretty much dispersed, at least the ones I’d care to visit. So there isn’t really much reason to visit my hometown.
Military brat. Never really had a hometown.
I live close to the town I went to highschool in. It hasn’t changed much.
Except, the highschool I went to is gone. They assimilated into a county wide school system.
We had a few manufacturers that have left. So the population has decreased.
When I was out and about I went there a coupla times a week.
No. The last time I did was for my sister’s funeral and I can’t imagine ever going there again.
Short answer: no.
Long answer: My father had a taste for living WAY the hell and gone out in the middle of nowhere, in tiny towns that no one has ever heard of. Every time anyone asks me where I’m from, the next question is “…and what’s that NEAR?”
The two towns I recall growing up in were, respectively, on the Texas gulf coast not too far from Corpus Christi, and over on the far side of Texas, near the Mexican border and not real close to anything else that you’d recognize. I used to get invitations to my high school reunions, but I never felt the need to drive over 200 miles out into the middle of nowhere in order to hang out with people I wasn’t crazy about the first time around.
I have examined both of these towns on Google Earth, which allows virtual travel and lookseeing. Neither town has sprouted anything in the last forty years that would make me particularly anxious to go back and look. Just the opposite: the little mom and pop businesses I remember from my youth have been replaced with chain fast food joints and Wal-Marts.
I was born and raised in the Bronx, and even though I live in Panama I go back several times a year. In the past it’s been to visit my mother, but she passed away in March. I’ll still go back to visit my brothers and sister, although only one of them still lives in the Bronx. (The others are elsewhere in NY state.) I love going back to New York, especially in the summer.
Yes, but it has changed a lot.
Yeah, my folks still live there. I get back a few times a year.
Yep…I go down to San Diego at least once a year. I stay with my best friend in Scripps Ranch and usually hang out for 4-5 days. We always hit Torrey Pines and La Jolla Shores and depending on the season we’ll take a day trip to Julian and/or Anza Borrego.
I used to quite regularly ( a few times/year ) for the first dozen to 15 years after moving away. In that time frame, even though I had my own house hundreds of miles away, I still had the sense that I’m “going back home to visit…”. After that, I no longer felt I was “going home”, but up to %&*$#@& ( the town’s name ) and by which time less and less looked the same, and with few people I know ( even if they’re recognizable by then ). Not different in a way better or worse; hell, in some ways it became a heck of a lot, well, spiffier somehow. I know that the average 1500 sq ft house went for about 150-180K then, which was then, well WELL out of reach for me. It’s about a gajillion now. Still out of reach. 
Very sporadically after that. I was last there over 3 years ago.
Born and raised in Chicago, then moved to North Carolina when I retired. Several times every year I go up to Chicago to attend SF conventions, and then at Christmas to get together with my family, most of whom are still in the Chicago area.
Nope.
Hometown #1, where I lived until age 8, was La Crescenta, a suburb of Los Angeles. We then moved to Hometown #2, San Jose, and I lived there until I was 34.
My grandparents all lived in the L.A. area until their deaths, so we went back often. The last time I was there was in 1998, for the final grandparent funeral. I don’t see why I’d ever go back. Though I often think it would be fun to see my little hometown again. But I would have to already be in the area for some reason; it wouldn’t be worth making a trip there for that.
My parents left San Jose before I did, in 1999, moving to a town in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento. I moved to Portland, OR in 2005. I still had friends in San Jose that I would go back and visit. They’ve all left as well. The last time I was there was in 2013, and I don’t see why I’d ever go back. And unlike for my L.A. suburb, there is no desire to visit San Jose again.
I moved back to Anchorage in 1998, then retired and left again in 2009. I’m glad I did that, as I rarely got back up there in the intervening 30 years after leaving the first time. I was able to reestablish close relationships with my brother, sister, and some of their offspring, and both of them have died since my most recent departure. I returned once when my sister died, and once a few years later to spread her ashes. I now have little reason to go back, other than badly missing the country (yes, pining for the fjords) at times.
Not since mom died, but I used to go regularly.
It has changed, little by little, so by now it doesn’t feel like the place where I grew up. There’s a Facebook group, though, where we can peruse old photos and stroll down amnesia lane.
No. I’ve very rarely been back since my parents died. It’s not far short of 400 miles away, and there’s no reason to go back. It’s the sort of town you grow up in, and then leave if you can. I did. My brother did. We last went back there four or five years ago for a cousin’s funeral - those sorts of things might see me back there for a day or two, but that’s it. And no, I don’t pine for it - ever.
j
Hometown 1: Age 0-8: Did a drive through last year. The previous time was at least 20 years before. I probably will never go back.
Hometown 2: Age 8 to early 20s: Parents still live there. Was there last year (same as hometown 1). Will make occasional visits (3-5 years), and two funerals. After that there will be siblings and cousins around. I’m not sure if I will visit then.
Yeah but only because my parents live there.
I quit going back to the town my grandparents lived in when they died too. I think I visited once or twice in the years since just to look around. I’ll probably do the same with my hometown after my parents die or move.
I was born in what was then a suburb of Toronto, the Borough of North York. Metropolitan Toronto at the time was made up the City of Toronto and 5 boroughs, but it was more of a County level of government for police and highways. Everything was amalgamated into a unified city in 1997 and the old Metro Toronto dissolved.
So in a nutshell, I still live in my hometown.