You, your home town, and coming full circle.

In My Humble Opinion
21

My childhood was split between 2 locations though I pretty much consider myself a New Englander (Lexington, Massachusetts). I left at 18 to go back to college in the original location and since then I’ve moved around a lot. I’m now across the country from where I grew up. I had a stint in the midwest as well.

There are things I absolutely adore about California but very simply-I cannot imagine raising a child anywhere other than somewhere close to Boston. Although, I feel like I’d want to settle some place like Brookline or Newton. Lexington was fairly close to Cambridge but it’s still way more suburb-ey than those two.

Which is to say that yes I have a pretty deep bond with the place but I had to go live in other places to figure out that I wanted to come full circle.

22

Bwahaha. My birthplace is upwards of 7,000 miles away, and I am not going back to some shitty little town in India for anything. What I think of as my “hometown” - Warren, MI - has nothing to draw me back either. Michigan is going down the tubes from everything I hear AND it snows a ton. I get the snow up here already.

23

I’m living in my hometown – a small city northeast of Chattanooga, TN – again after six months spent in Nebraska and two years in Oregon. I miss the Pacific Northwest a lot and hope to move back some day when I am more financially secure and able.

24

I suppose this is the kind of thing I am talking about, indirectly, what your husband feels is place-bonding. And I am very interested in that topic. Example, I live on the rocky coast of Narraganssett bay, seaweed, tides, gales and lots of salt air[VID] - I love this location, I am definitley bonded with it. However, there are places that have the same charactor that I could like equally as much, such as parts of the high plains/range of Wyoming and Monatana - both are gorgeous every season of the year. *Oh if I could only do the 6mos-here-6mos-there jig! * Maybe someday! I’m just trying to be more mindful of the places I live in and explore. It’s amazing what different people think about where they live.

25

I left Jackson MS and never ever looked back - fled, might be a better term. California, Michigan, Nevada, California again - progressively bigger and bigger places.

Would never, ever live anywhere remotely near the south in general and Mississippi in specific again if you paid me. I turned down my inheritance so I wouldn’t own property there. I visit my family but when my grandfather passes, good riddance. Even just thinking of it now I get a feeling of revulsion.

I live in Sydney now and it’s home. I love it more than I can say. I never want to live anywhere at all, ever, but here - and by here, I mean the urban, near city suburb I live in or some of the ones near it. No rural anything, thanks so much. Wide open spaces and trees and wildlife and stuff bore me absolutely senseless. It’s pretty, I’ll vacation there, but after I look at it for a few days I really just need to get out. I need busy streets and restaurants and shops and the feeling of things going on around me. New York or London might be the only other places I’d want to try living, and even then it would mean giving up my house and my neighborhood, so no thanks.

So yeah, I get the idea of place-bonding, and it seems I have done it, but I don’t think you need to return to your childhood home.

26

Some folks, I think, end up staying in their home towns from inertia. I don’t think it was like that for him, more of a thing of comfort and familiarity. He was unsure of himself as a young person, how to act and what to do etc. etc. so that staying here was much easier than exploring off somewhere else, like I did. He loves the woods and spends as much time there as he can - he loves to be outdoors in general; loves to split wood or cut & bale hay, work with livestock etc. It’s just a perfect place for a guy like him. That’s not to say there aren’t other places on the globe well suited for the things he enjoys - it just happens that this what he’s used to.

Isn’t that funny, you’re so opposite from me - those busy streets and things going on around me would drive me crazy. I agree with Phlospr, so fascinating how we feel about places we live in.

Although, I don’t think I’d live in Jackson proper, either. :slight_smile:

27

I almost didn’t post cause you’d posted above me, because I know you love Mississippi. (Although as Jackson goes, I don’t mind going to my aunt’s place with the big porch, and fireflys in the summer are kinda cool. For like, a day or two.)

I grew up somewhere behind Clinton, then Terry, then Belhaven, and not Jackson proper until I was a teenager, then Mississppi College in Clinton - maybe that was my full circle? The house I turned down is on Utica St. in Terry. My great-grandfather built it. As much as I loved my great-grandmother and as much time as I spent growing up there, I caused a nine-day wonder in the family with my thanks but no thanks when it came to Grandaddy’s Will.

It was stifling, and I hated it from a young age. I used to read books about kids that grew up in big cities and I wanted that life. I used to dream about it.

I do find that the people I know who love the south love it with all their hearts and would never leave, cannot for the life of them understand why I’d want to leave Miss. and even America for crying out loud. Just like I cannot understand why friends with ample education and choices don’t get the hell out. It was a while before I worked out that some people don’t think like me - the nerve of them, honestly! :wink:

I find that I’m in the minority, with my love of the movement and the lights and the goings on. Most people want to live in or retire to the country, and when they tell me why I still can’t get it. I just can’t…feel it…for want of better words.

But you know, if you could send me some proper corn meal, that’d be good. :wink:

28

Heh. My current house sits on the site where I suspect I was conceived!

I too left the area, living good chunks of time away. But the old family estate called me back.

29

Wow, interesting to see so many Mississippi folks weighing in here…

Hear all the various opinions…understood… I lived in MSPI for 13 years, moving from NC to Oxford, and, it was a great time of life for me. I love MSPI, but, of course, have moved to NC to avoid the crap poverty afforded there. Can see moving back, though, still have a house/shack there.

I’m a 4th generation So. Californian, and still love the light, arid landscape , and Pacific ocean views. Born smack dab in LA, and can’t see going back there. It’s too damn crowded. Yet, I love that light, and in many ways, still a Californian, in wanting to make things new and forge ahead. In the South, that mind hasn’t always been easy to grip the culture. The restlessness is a difference I’ve found in NC and MSPI.

But, I love the South, too, and am pretty much rooted here. I think if I went back to CA, I would be sad and miss the South, and impatient with culture there. Man, this sounds like a mess, but there ya go for being a truly transient mutt. For the record, I lived in NY and Maine, too .

To go full circle, Mississippi made me want to live in the South much more. My beat self grew up there. Tough, but Oxford was a galvanizing place at that time.

30

Our Dad brought me and my brother to Georgia from Germany in 1960, when I was 11 and my brother was 3.

Guess who didn’t wanna come?

Right, me.

At age 11, I felt like I was leaving my home, my family and my friends, and my Dad who also had the baby to deal with, (since our Mom came home on a different flight due to her being sick) had a little hellion on his hands, because I kept running away at the Frankfurt airport and they finally dragged me kicking and screaming onto the plane.

When we arrived in Villa Rica, about 14 miles east of Dallas, and pulled into our driveway, imagine my disgust as I laid eyes on our beautiful ante-bellum home made of GASP:eek: WOOD!

“What’s this”, I asked. “A barn?”

“No, this is our house. Your home”, said Dad.

“I’m not living here”, I replied, with crossed arms and set lips.

And that’s the way it went for our first 5 years.

I gave both my American Dad and my German Mom hell.

I don’t know excactly when I let up, but I think it was 1964 when The Beatles surfaced, I joined a band, and all of a sudden things didn’t seem so bad anymore. I became popular in high school (got called “Nazi” before that) and graduated went to college, joined the Air Force and, I guess, bonded anyway.

I have to drive through Villa Rica every now and then and my path carries me by where the old house used to stand (it has since been torn down) and I think about those old days and how tough it was, and ask myself "Would you wanna live here again, Bill?’

The answer is, yes, I guess I would.

Even though I am half German, I have been afforded some great opportunities here in America, and have enjoyed my life.

Nice thread!

Bill

31

I left New Zealand and never looked back (except for the annual-ish trip back to see whichever relative is getting married/having a significant birthday or anniversary, that sort of thing.)

Ironically, even though I was born in South Canterbury, I grew up in Christchurch, and all my relatives are in either Auckland (One of the least interesting major cities on the planet, IMHO) or Dunedin, which is cold, boring, and living there too long does funny things to people. I have no real connection to Auckland (besides regarding it as a useful transit stop on Trans-Pacific Flights) and I haven’t been to Dunedin since I was about 14.

The New Zealand of today is not the New Zealand I grew up in; it’s not the same country and things have changed there.

I don’t feel a great fondness for Queensland, either. It’s hard to explain- I like living here, but I don’t regard myself as a “Queenslander”, either.

32

New England born and raised, haven’t left and have no plans to do so. I can’t imagine being away from the four seasons. There’s just enough change that happens here to keep it interesting.

33

That was a very interesting post, Bill!

I hope you take some time to record your memories of Germany and your first impressions of America in your blog. Definitely something people will want to read, and memories you won’t want to lose (even if they were painful at the time).

34

I’m 40 and have lived in the area around Dayton, OH my whole life. As long as I can stay gainfully employed here, I’ll never move.

35

I don’t think I’m old enough to have truly “come full circle.” Also, I am not 100% sure if I am going to stay where I am now indefinitely. I am originally from a very rural part of central Ohio. My hometown has a population of less than 500 people and the nearest supermarket was at least a 10 minute drive away. So, when I was younger, I dreamed of moving to a large city, away from the country. I wanted to move to some cosmopolitan locale like New York, London, or Tokyo. At university I had an opportunity to study at a Tokyo university and I took it. I liked the big city, but I never really felt at home there. I later moved out to the Middle-of-nowhere, Japan and I’ve since realized that I like the countryside too much to ever leave it permanently. The Tokyos and New Yorks of the world will always be fun to visit, but my home is out in the sticks.

36

When I’m in flatlands, my eyes crave hills. But my skin wants someplace warmer. I’m desperate to be warm half of the year.

I wouldn’t miss the weather, or the poverty, or the sheer whiteness of the place.

I’d miss Conn’s potato chips, though.

37

Oh, I’m glad you did. Obviously not everyone has the same feelings for this crazy place! :wink:

I understand. One of the many reasons I don’t live in my birthplace.

Heh.

My big sister loves the city. She’s lived in Chicago, Los Angeles, and NYC. No retiring to the country for her either.

I’ll have to see what I can do about that!

38

I get this feeling as well when I visit the big cities. I’m happy living in the outskirts, or even in the sticks - being a private person has it’s advantages, but sometimes we want to indulge in our shadow side, the side that like the spectacle of large crowds of people. We just don’t like it every day :slight_smile:

39

Thank you, Zip, but those memories are very painful ones and might be better posted in a separate blog from the one about the AD, whatcha think?

Can’t really see a tie-in, or can you suggest one?

Thanks

Bill

40

I was born in Southern Illinois. I used to think I wanted to live in a big city where I could get lost in the middle of everything hot and happening. I thought that was the key to appearing successful and hip. The truth is, I love being able to go ten minutes from my house and see farmland. I love that I can get away from people with so little effort. I love having an Amish market two towns over. I love my snowy winters and my blistering summers. I love everything about my quiet Midwestern life. I don’t want to be hip anymore, I just want to be happy.