So what things about your hometown/current town would surprise someone?
HOMETOWN: Glendive Montana
LOCATION: Southeast Montana on the northern edge of the badlands.
SURPRISING THINGS:
The local Chamber of Commerce gets between $6K and $25K each year for caviar sales. The CC has set up a booth where you can get your paddlefish (up to 145 pounds) cleaned for free when you catch it on the Yellowstone river. They keep the eggs and sell them to caviar brokers. The money goes back to community development.
Part of the money is used for the annual Buzzard Day festivities. This is the celebration of the return of the turkey buzzards to the local state park (Makoshika). There is a folf tournament, a 1k, 5k, 10k run and a barbecue.
I’m from Detroit, so there is a definate image that my hometown conjure up for many people. I guess some things that people might find surprising are:
1: We don’t actually burn things on devil’s night anymore. Efforts in the last ten years to cut down on pre-halloween fires have been very effective, and our cities’ yearly black-eye has been almost completely eliminated.
2: The cities’ publicized support for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival(the largest electronic music event in the US) is in complete contrast to its efforts to eliminate techno afterhours(where no alcohol is sold) during the rest of the year. interestingly, those same afterhours are left alone during the DEMF weekend.
3: no, you will not be shot for walking around the city at night.
The Motel 6 out by the interstate isn’t bad - rooms kind of like jail cells, bare painted concrete block.
Damn, I wasn’t there on a Friday - I missed the walleye.
But I did enjoy watching local television in the bottom of the bottom markets (#209) in the country!
::ducking flying objects now::
OK, now that I’ve made an ass of myself and picked on your hometown, I’ll tell you about mine:
HOMETOWN: Rockland, Maine.
LOCATION: Midcoast area on the Penobscot Bay - kind of halfway between Portland and Bar Harbor (or just south of Camden - everybody knows Camden … sheesh)
SUPRISING THINGS:
Marine Colloids is one of the city’s largest employers - what do they do? They make all sorts of lovely products from seaweed and other marine biological scum and muck. Much of there final products end up in things like ice cream, makeup and snack foods.
The big festival they have every year in August that everyone calls “The Lobster Festival” is actually called “The Maine Seafood Festival” - but the only place you’re likely to see that is on a program or placemat.
The Farnsworth Art Museum houses one of the largest and most complete collections of works from Andrew, Jamie and NC Wyeth in existence.
Dorman’s Dairy Dream doesn’t serve walleye …
And Rockland doesn’t even MAKE the list of US television markets… But WRKD radio has been a staple of mid-coast Maine for almost 70 years (even though it’s now been gobbled up by radio giant ClearChannel Communications)
TVGuy, I’ve been to Rockland several times - I did my undergrad in Waterville, and coastal trips were a staple of summers on campus.
Hometown: Chattanooga, TN
Location: Southeastern TN, right on the Georgia border, about 13 miles from the Alabama line.
Surprising things: Chattanooga’s growth since I was in high school. When I was a little chica, the city had some of the worst air in the nation. The city has made a point of really trying to turn it around.
The downtown area really is beautiful. I don’t make it back as often as I’d sometimes like, but I’m always sort of surprised at the regrowth of downtown.
Location: So. California, the “Inland Empire”, about 80 miles SE of Los Angeles.
Home of the Ramona Pageant and the Maze Stone, an old rock that some Indians carved a maze into (oooooooooh…aaaaaaah…).
I can’t think of anything else…it’s really hot there…there’s a lot of dirt…
Hometown (town where I was born and lived most of my life): Glendale California.
Location: A little Northwest of Los Angeles. Near Burbank and Pasadena.
Known for: Forest Lawn Mortuary. Oh, excuse me, “Memorial Park”. Many famous people are buried here, and it is a tourist attraction for its beautiful buildings, recreations of classic artwork and statues, etc. When I was growing up, every relative that came to visit from out of town visited Forest Lawn. Local schools take field trips to Forest Lawn. My dad had his memorial service at Forest Lawn. So did SNL comedian Phil Hartman, among many others (small world, I guess). Word is that the '60s dark comedy “The Loved One” was inspired by Forest Lawn. Which explains why no theatre in the area would play the film (Forest Lawn had pull, apparently). That’s what my dad said, anyway. He had to drive to a different county to see the movie, which is something you usually don’t have to do in Glendale, or nearby areas.
Brand Library. Beautiful public library that specializes in art and music book. I grew up going there. Look at the web site I linked to—you might recognize the Brand Building. It looks like a Morroccan temple. It often doubles for some exotic locale in TV and movies. Brand also hosts art shows. I was lucky to have my work displayed in such a show. A great source of pride for me.
Glendale Galleria. One of the largest and nicest malls in Southern California (in my opinion). One of the first locations to host an Apple Store. (Yes, I’m proud of that.)
My town, which I don’t consider home, is called Palaiseau (France). It’s in the same ‘state’ as Paris, but is really a suburb of Paris.
It’s most famous for being the birthplace of Joseph Bara, the young boy who exclaimed, “Vive la République!” I think he died shortly after saying this, at the age of 13.
Ecole Polytechnique is also located in my town, and it’s probably the most prestigious scientific university in France.
Hmm… Hometown for the longest time was Edson, Alberta… a little hick town (though I hear it’s grown) halfway between Edmonton and Jasper. Surprising things about it…
There was a fighter jet or something akin to it on a huge pedastel to look like it’s flying. I’m better it was just a life-size model though.
They are the Softball Capital of Alberta (Canada?) There is a whole park full of just softball fields (around 30 or so) just outside of town, along with about the same amount scattered throughout the town. My school alone had 5 or 6 fields surrounding it. Around the middle of August the town is impossible to find a place to stay in because all the softball players have taken all the hotels and any nearby campsites.
The fair they have at the end of August (last weekend) has the best deals anywhere. All the stores pile stuff out on the sidewalk and sell it off for extremely cheap. Some of it is even good. I managed to buy a real leather purse for $1 one year… -wonders what happened to it-
Dearborn, MI-- Largest concentration of Arabs in U.S. But despite what many people around here think, it’s not 90% Arabic, more like 30%.
Hometown of Henry Ford. His birthplace (formerly the Ford farm) is now a retirement village (called-- surprise, surprise-- Henry Ford Village).
What is now the eastend of Dearborn was once named after his son, Edsel. It was called Fordson. Fordson High School’s mascot is the Tractors, named after Ford’s line of farm equipment, the Fordson Tractor. A high school in the city’s west end was also named after Henry’s son, Edsel Ford High School (my alma mater), and has the Thunderbird as its mascot.
One of the first mayors of Dearborn was Clyde Ford, a distant cousin of Henry.
Dearborn has one of the most vibrant Arab-American business communities outside of the Middle East, and you’ll find some of the best Arabic restaurants in the world here.
With the high Arabic population, as expected, there has been quite a bit of attention on Dearborn in the wake of 9/11. A handful of al Qaeda links have lived here at one time or another, and there have been a number of (largely unproven) rumors that following 9/11, entire households of people just vamoosed for no immediately obvious reason.
Surprising- Allegedly, Charleston boasts the longest city block in the world. That block (near the capitol building) is encompassed IIRC Bradford St., Quarrier St., Elizabeth St., and Virginia Ave.
LOCATION: Southern, but not too far southern TX, about 2 hours from Houston, Corpus, San Antonio and Austin
SURPRISING THINGS:
My high school mascot was “The Gobblers.” Yep, turkeys. I was a member of the Fightin’ Cuero Gobbler Marching Band.
In addition to having that as the mascot, there is also a festival held every October (I think) called Turkeyfest. There is a parade, a fair, the whole 9. They do a turkey race, and turkey bowling (I’ve never seen it, but my mom said it involves a frozen turkey in place of a ball.) I knew the story behind the whole turkey thing at one time, but after I moved, I forgot it.
Current town.
Flint Michigan.
Flint is the birthplace of the UAW and home of the 39 sitdowners.
GM has done a wonderful job of destroying all that history and finding new communities to screw up. Flint was a thriving community before the 70s. Now it is a ghost town.
Most Friday nights are spent watching crack houses burn down. Everybody “carries”.
The major job opportunity for young people is fast food related or real estate.
Red
