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Post by lola on Jul 27, 2009 1:43:42 GMT
I spent a total of ten years in the place I think of as my home town, where I went to high school and where my family had lived since the 1920's. There's no one there now with our last name. It sits on the river that forms a border between cotton county and the Ozarks.
It's a town of 16,000 per the city limits sign, and has always been a wild place. Was called "Little Chicago" at one time for its vice level. When my grandfather was mayor he resisted slot machines, but saw no reason to resist bathtub gin during Prohibition.
There's one High School in town, so the children of doctors and bankers, farmers, town drunks all get to know each other. Into the mid 1960's, negroes had a separate school. There were a few Jewish families and no orientals when I was a girl.
What was/is your home town like?
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Post by hwinpp on Jul 27, 2009 3:55:22 GMT
The city I was born in is Kuala Lumpur. I went to school twice there, for about a year each time and I return there nearly every year to see relatives. There are lots of them!
The second place I have ties to is where my father grew up and I went to the last three years of school. I had maybe two good friends in school, they've both left, my mother left long ago to stay in the same street as my sister, I've never been back and I don't think I will.
The last town I have ties to is Hanover. I lived there on and off from '89 to '05. I studied there, have good friends and had a business there. My sister and mother live about 60km north of it. Of course I go there every time I'm in Europe.
I think I'd consider both Hanover and Kuala Lumpur home towns.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2009 4:33:25 GMT
The town of my childhood is Long Beach, Mississippi. Even though I am curious about once every 5 years to see what has become of the town, I do not feel attached to it at all.
My sentimental home town would be my grandparents' village in eastern France.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2009 3:58:11 GMT
100 miles SE of NYC ,end of Long Island. Was rural ,agricultural community on the Atlantic. Population(year round was approx. 1500 in the 1960's),popular artist /writer's summer colony in the 1950's through the 1970's. Now, playground of the rich and famous AKA "the Hamptons" (oh, how I loathe that name!) Growing up was real "small town",high school graduating class 24,largest class to graduate was 40 in 1968. WASP,Irish,Polish,Afro American ,arrived in that order. The "summer people" were my saviors. I left in 1971. My mother and oldest brother still reside there along with many cousins.
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Post by bjd on Jul 28, 2009 7:01:57 GMT
I was born in Manchester, England but left at the age of 7 when my family emigrated to Canada. I can't say I really consider it my "home town" since I don't remember too much about it. I went back there for the first time in 2006! Met up with my sister and a friend of hers who we were staying with in Yorkshire drove us to look up the house we used to live in. It was still there, for sale in fact, but obviously it had not been taken care of -- the hedge was gone, they had paved over the back garden. And my parents had sold it for £25,000 -- it was being sold for £400,000.
Since I grew up and went to school and university in Toronto, Canada, I suppose I would consider that my home town.
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Post by gringalais on Jul 28, 2009 12:43:43 GMT
casimira - I was born in Southampton in 1971. We lived in Westhampton Beach.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2009 16:10:12 GMT
casimira - I was born in Southampton in 1971. We lived in Westhampton Beach. Well,there you have it. As I was leaving, you were arriving. And here we are in the same Port. Ships in the night. If you went to Westhampton H.S.,you may have been in the same class as my eldest niece Nicole. I'm trying to remember what year she was born. Around that time.
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Post by lola on Jul 28, 2009 17:59:23 GMT
I'd like to have a Skype conference call and hear your voices. Casi, do you have one of those adorable Long Island accents?
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Post by gringalais on Jul 28, 2009 18:26:40 GMT
casimira - I was born in Southampton in 1971. We lived in Westhampton Beach. Well,there you have it. As I was leaving, you were arriving. And here we are in the same Port. Ships in the night. If you went to Westhampton H.S.,you may have been in the same class as my eldest niece Nicole. I'm trying to remember what year she was born. Around that time. Actually we left in 1979, but I remember that the last year I was in elementary school there, I had 3 Nicoles in my class. It was definitely the popular name at the time. My parents almost named me Nicole too. I am kind of glad they didn't or I would have been the 4th.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2009 21:22:40 GMT
I'd like to have a Skype conference call and hear your voices. Casi, do you have one of those adorable Long Island accents? It's funny,I have never had an accent of any kind. The further out on the island you are ,the less the accent. My brother and nieces who lived further west and worked in NYC definitely had(have) accents. I got out of there well before an accent on anything could take hold. You find them adorable? I always thought they sounded like Bimbos.
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Post by lola on Jul 29, 2009 1:44:19 GMT
No, not bimbo sounding to me, maybe because exotic. The accent in SE MO, near my home town, is nasal and irritating. I defy anyone to think it's cute. Not like the soft southern accents.
bjd, it's annoying when they don't take care of your old house, isn't it? especially if they can sell it for a fortune.
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Post by chrkirby on Jul 29, 2009 13:47:48 GMT
The town of my childhood is Long Beach, Mississippi. Even though I am curious about once every 5 years to see what has become of the town, I do not feel attached to it at all. My sentimental home town would be my grandparents' village in eastern France.
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Post by chrkirby on Jul 29, 2009 13:58:04 GMT
My birthplace is London England where I spent a total of 11 days before flying off to Holland. My whole childhood was spent roaming the globe with nomadic parents so I call no one place my hometown. My Dad was English, my Mother is French, my sister and I were both born in London and my brother is an Aussie. I consider Atlanta GA my hometown now as I have lived here (on and off) for almost 40 years. If I had to pick a childhood place it would be Belley France and Chindrieux, on the Lac du Bourget. I still have family in the area and have been to visit a few times. They show us off as their American relatives. My cousins and nieces have come to visit us also. Kerouac, what French village are your Grandparents from? I wonder if I have been there.
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Post by bjd on Jul 29, 2009 14:31:39 GMT
lola, I imagine that there were many different people living in that house since my parents sold it 50 years ago. Since it was quite a big house, there were probably rentals too. Despite its sad condition to me, its price was certainly related to its proximity to Manchester University and the city centre.
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Post by rikita on Aug 10, 2009 21:21:13 GMT
well i grew up in a village near berlin, and lived there until i finished school and moved to berlin for university (with a year's interruption of when i went on my exchange). village might give the wrong impression though, it is more like a suburban area (though it was less densely populated when i was little, than it is now), and the different villages pretty much go directly from one to the next... anyway, i often considered the neighbour village more home than my own, because there i went to elementary school, to church, and my mom worked there. later i went to school in the nearest small town... my mom had grown up about two or three villages away, my dad in said neighbour village (from the age of ten, before he had lived in a town further away).
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Post by lola on Aug 12, 2009 1:04:38 GMT
chrkirby, it seems that you prefer to stay more or less in one place after your rambling childhood. It must have been an interesting way to grow up!
rikita, I like the idea of growing up a few villages from where you parents grew up. We don't tend to have that kind of continuity in the US.
We mostly grew up in our father's home town, and found sometimes that we got more of a break on our teenage escapades, because of our family.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 12, 2009 4:46:45 GMT
What a varied bunch of backgrounds! Even the people who were born in, and grew up in one spot are exotic to me. I was an Air Force brat, so we moved frequently. Our home town was my mother's town and we returned every summer. For more about my home town, go here.
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Post by lola on Aug 12, 2009 14:14:07 GMT
Thanks, bixa. Wonderful thread.
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Post by livaco on Aug 14, 2009 13:45:28 GMT
Yes, bixa, nice job. My hometown is Milwaukee, WI. It's just a place on the globe where I happened to be born, but I do love it, and always have. When I was 13 my parents moved us up north to a very rural area. I went to high school in a small town called Freedom. At the time I greatly hated moving out to the middle of nowhere as I saw it. I pretty much complained for the whole 5 years. Now I do have some good memories of that time, but I am a city girl at heart. At the age of 18 years (and one month) I moved back to Milwaukee, where I went to Marquette University right downtown. Then at 20 I moved to London, and lived there for 6 years. I consider the Camden Town area of London to be sort of a second "hometown". It was a great place to be in my twenties. I moved back to Milwaukee in 1991 when I was pregant with my son, and have lived here ever since. Like I said I love it. It's big enough to be a real city (about a million people). I can get any kind of restaurant, shop, night life etc. that I'd want. It's got its different areas -- the trendy east side, the working class south side, some pretty rough areas in the north side (but often with very interesting food, music etc.), and the snobby and beautiful north shore. We got a great lake (Lake Michigan) and the Milwaukee River, and we go out on our boat on both pretty often. The river especially is nice; there are a lot of brew pubs and restaurants along the river. Also, for day trips, you can head north or west for very beautiful lakes and rural areas. Or south an hour and a half to Chicago. Some pics of Milwaukee: Calatrava-designed art museum on the shore of Lake Michigan Where we go to watch baseball... And Summerfest, our great music festival And for more info... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerfest
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 14, 2009 16:01:11 GMT
Wow ~~ some cool architecture in Milwaukee!
Livaco, I hope you'll think about doing an expanded version of this on the North America board. These pictures and your comments make me want to know more, more.
Any Port people live all over the world, and even different parts of our own countries can be fascinating unknown quantities. It would be so great if everyone realized you don't have to go on vacation to show something interesting. There are many "in my own backyard" threads on this forum that prove just that.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 14, 2009 16:10:13 GMT
One of the things I am really enjoying in this thread are the glimpses of history in each one, especially the bits of history that occurred in our own lifetimes, as with Lola's town or Casimira's area, which has been "discovered" with a vengeance.
It's also interesting to see what a mixed group we are in terms of having grown up in the ancestral spot or moving all over.
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Post by margaretlb on Aug 14, 2009 17:49:44 GMT
I'm new to this board and this thread has put me in a nostalgic mood. I still live in my hometown - Staten Island, NY. For those who don't already know, Staten Island is one of the 5 boroughs that comprise NYC and has always been a bedroom community. Many people know it from our famous ferry and, since it's free, lots of tourists take the ride for great pictures of the Statue of Liberty. It has changed greatly in the 40+ years since the Verazzanno Bridge joined us to the rest of NYC via Brooklyn. Prior to the bridge, SI population was about 100,000 and the expectation is that the 2010 census will bring us to over half-a-million! I grew up on a dead-end street, ethnically mixed with big families having lots of kids - we were only four kids so was considered a small family. I still remember all of the various vendors bringing their products right to your street. Of course, the milk man but also the fishmonger, fruit and vegetable guy, beer and soda truck, that old-timer who came around (and still does - just a different old-timer) to sharpen knives, lawnmowers, etc. My favorite, however was the elderly peddler from Eastern Europe. He had extremely bowed legs and would waddle down our block carrying two bundles tied in brown paper and twine. He'd lug those parcels to the kitchen table and one at a time open all those knots (making a whistling sound almost silently under his breath) to disclose all sorts of dry good. Socks and hankerchiefs, underwear and tableclothes, dish towels and aprons - all sorts of stuff. And he had his little book and stubby pencil we're he'd mark your payments against your outstanding account. All the neighbors bought a little something and he returned month after month, year after year until one day he just never came again. It's hard to imagine that this took place in 1960's NYC.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2009 18:08:06 GMT
That's really interesting. So many people came to the U.S. and other countries to make a new life, but one of the things that marked most of us who were 'already here' was the way that they had brought their own country and its traditions with them. And yet so many of them brought up families that completely embraced the new country and completely rejected the old ways. (In a certain number of cases, this was a good thing.)
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 14, 2009 19:58:13 GMT
Hi, Margaret and welcome. And thank you for such a fascinating look at a world that seems to have been shot in sepia, yet was a mere forty years ago.
I am always intrigued by stories of people who grew up in and around New York City, as the whole melting pot culture seems to have thrived there well after other parts of the States had become more "Americanized".
Thinking about the old peddler is really moving, trying to imagine his story, how he got to the US, all the struggles, and then finally the end of his life in a strange land.
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Post by lola on Aug 15, 2009 0:17:01 GMT
That's wonderful, Margaret. The only peddler here in our inner ring suburb is an ice cream truck that makes the rounds several times a day from late spring to late fall. Announces itself with loud tinkling recorded music that I kind like. A couple of items probably costs more than a half gallon (now 1.75 L) of store ice cream, so you're either paying for the experience or your inability to defer gratification.
As a child in small towns we had milkman only. My brother bought a van the summer after his senior year, intending to make it the Good Day Sunshine Ice Cream Truck and clean up financially. We painted it beautifully and then he ran up against reality in the form of health dept regulations. Two sinks? To sell packaged ice cream bars?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2009 0:25:41 GMT
Welcome Margaret. I have dear friends of Greek origin that grew up on Staten Island and have heard wonderfully similar stories. Their mother still resides there. it always sounded like a wonderful place to grow up. Thanks for sharing this. Livaco,have always heard great things about Milwaukee. Have good friends in Madison that relocated there after Katrina. I for some reason always thought you were from Canada.
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Post by Jazz on Aug 15, 2009 5:54:16 GMT
Welcome, Margaret and thank you for a great first post. I know little about New York and have only visited four times, with extremely mixed feelings. I like the story of the elderly peddlar from eastern Europe...it is hard to imagine that this took place only forty years ago.
Livaco, the Calatrava designed museum is stunning. I had never heard of this architect and searched him...incredible work!
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Post by lola on Aug 24, 2009 1:25:51 GMT
Livaco, I need to get up to Milwaukee and look around. My brother was married in Wauwatosa, and we stayed out in the somewhat boring suburbs. We drove through on our way back from Door County (which we loved) a few years ago, just buzzed through Milwaukee on the highway undergoing massive construction.
My younger daughter wants to visit Lawrence University in Appleton when we're out looking at colleges this year, up closer to Green Bay.
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Post by livaco on Aug 24, 2009 3:18:04 GMT
lola, I live quite near 'Tosa now, although I am still technically in Milwaukee. For many years, I lived on the near South Side which is very Mexican, and I still work there. It got to be too much with parking problems, loud music ALL the time, rising crime rate etc. But it's not too bad of an area really and worth visiting if you come to Milwaukee. Go shopping along Cesar Chavez Ave. It's pretty boring and quiet where I live now which now is ok with me. In college I lived right downtown which is another area to see as a visitor. And the East Side too. I forgot about the Oriental Theater. That is worth seeing. www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-7452-a-cinema-landmark-milwaukeerss-oriental-theatre.htmlOh, and the major highway construction is done, but they'll probably start something new soon enough... I agree about Door County. It's beautiful up there. And I definitely know Lawrence University. It's right downtown in Appleton. Appleton is a pretty major size city, but it's very safe.
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Post by gyro on Aug 24, 2009 8:38:15 GMT
I was raised by wolves. We never stayed in one place long.
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