I guess you’d have to define “hometown” in my case. I was born in a small city in mid-coast Maine, was a young child in a suburb south of Boston and graduated high school in a suburb south of Baltimore.
In all honesty, I have no desire to live near either Boston or Baltimore and the job market in that area of Maine has sucked swamp water for years and years - talk about poverty with a view! I lived in Southern Maine and Southern New Hampshire for about 15 years after getting out of high school and can honestly say that I’m not really interested in moving back to any of those places either - unless it’s after retirement.
As for my family - My parents do the Maine/Florida summer/winter commute thing. My sister lives in Alaska with her husband and their son. My brother flits up and down the east coast chasing seasonal jobs as a sailing coach. The rest of my extended family lives everywhere from Southern California to Texas to Colorado to Alabama - and yes, Maine and Massachussets. My high school friends, the few I keep in touch with, are scattered all over the world. My college friends, the few I keep in touch with, are also scattered all over.
So here I am, rootless and beginning my tenth year in the Pacific Northwest. Honestly, to me, this is about the best part of the country that I’ve seen so far and I may just stay here. Who knows?
Anyone who’s been to The Dalles, Oregon, will understand why I never want to go back. A couple years ago, a friend from there, who now lives in Portland, and I decided it would be fun to go out in The Dalles. It was horribly depressing. I vowed never to go back again just for the hell of it. Bleah.
Yet another small-town Illinoisian over here. I’m with most of the people here that it was a great place to grow up in and I have a lot of good memories, but I’d die before I moved back there. I still go back every couple of months to visit my father for a weekend and that’s more than enough to sate my desire to spend any time there.
Wow, lots of Illinoisians around here! Actually, my father grew up in Paris, IL, and has taken us back a time or two - to our intense boredom and agoraphobia. Flat! Yikes!
As for me, I grew up in a tiny town in Northern Vermont - center of the Northeast Kingdom. 362 people, spread out over a huge area, mostly farmland and forests. I enjoy going back, especially as my son can play outside and get an idea about what it’s like to not have his mom on his case every second, but as for living there? Not on your life. Cold winters, so remote you can’t see another soul for miles, driving the plow at 4am so you can get out to go to school…nope, I’ll pass.
I love my hometown. Was born and raised ther, left at 18 to go to college, but still go “home” (I still think of it as home) every couple of months to visit my mother (in fact, I just got back today from a weekend there). It spoiled me for anywhere else and I’ve never really felt at home elsewhere.
“So why don’t you sharrup and move back?” Well, I might have to, if my mother’s health fails and she needs someone to take care of her . . . But the problem is, “work.” My career is here in NY, and I need accessibility to NY’s research libraries to write my books. But, yes, here is someone who loved her hometown.
I consider my hometown to be Abbotsford, which is about an hour outside of Vancouver.I moved there when I was four. I went to elementary , junior high, and high school there. I was born in Prince George, where I now find myself. I came back up here for University, but it never was my hometown.
I lived in Abby for 14 years, and I do want to go back, just to see how things have changed. I’ve only been away for 4 years, but it seems to me a whole lifetime. I left the day after the last day of school, and I haven’t looked back. I have a lot of memories from that town, but it will be strange to go back. The person that I was when I lived there really no longer exists. Once I left, I really started to grow. There are maybe two people who I wouldn’t mind looking up, but I probably won’t. Mostly because I feel that they will be different people too. It reminds me of a line from a Douglas Coupland novel, “Miss Wyoming”. I’m paraphrasing but Nowadays, they prepare you to have four or five different jobs. What they don’t prepare you for is to be four or five different people". Going back will be strange, and depressing, because it will be a chapter of my life that is closed forever. As it has been said in this thread, and many times before, “You can never go home”.
I live in a rather small town on the Flordia/Alabama line… you pass gas and everybody knows in a few minutes. I hated high school here. I depised it. Since graduation, I’ve gotten to love it this little town. I definitly plan on coming back after college. Its just a great place to raise children I think.
I grew up mostly (8-18, then 21-23) in a small city in Northern California. I often fantasize about moving back, buying a house (hahaha!!! so far out of my financial reach!) and sending my hypothetical children to my old high school. I’ve only been away for a year at the moment, though, maybe someday I’ll feel the same affection for the Midwest.
Cheesesteaks, hoagies, decent pizza, tree with leaves on 'em, a great art museum, my family. I love Philadelphia, my hometown. I moved away when I was 18 and have lived away for much longer than that, but it will always be home.
::wipes away a tear::
OTOH it’s humid, packed in with people and there are no mountains, so I can never tell which direction I am headed. If only I could solve this bi-coastal conundrum. Sigh.
There is very little IT work in Charlottetown (PEI), so I had to move to Ottawa to find a job. If I could find a job in PEI I would move back in an instant.
I love my hometown (Carl’s frozen custard on a hot August night, tubing down the river in a pair of cutoffs and old sneakers, Mary Washington College girls), and growing up there was a joy, but it is slowly being swallowed by Washington DC and it just ain’t what it used to be. I couldn’t live there now. My folks and my brothers are still there, but I won’t be going home again.
Small town in Southern NH, and definitely never again. The place holds no good memories for me whatsoever.
Andrew Vachss, in several of his novels, says that your family can be who you choose it to be, rather than the people you’re actually related to. I think the same thing can apply to “hometowns”, in which case I’d definitely move to the town my grandparents lived in and where my grandmother and mother grew up. I have nothing but good memories of that place.