Hometowns

No matter where you go, no matter how many places you plant roots, work, raise a family and make friends there will be but one place you will ever call your Hometown. It might be a hamlet or village, city or metropolis-it doesn't matter. Your hometown is where you grew up. You probably went to school there and most always relatives were near.

Summer is the time many go back to where memories of those early years are engrained in the sidewalks and parks, corner stores and downtowns, movie theatres and malls, libraries, trees, fields and maybe even rivers, streams, mountains or skyscrapers. Summer is the season of going back to family reunions where new babies are googled over and elders appreciated and familiar tales are heard again and new stories are told and newlyweds sit by couples who've gone through many a four seasons. Besides festivals and fairs, class reunions bring  people back home too. For a few hours you get to step back in time and recall the big game or moments in a classroom or certain teachers. Even better you get to check out classmates you may have had a crush on or classmates you forgot about or some you don't recognize at all.

Whatever constitutes your hometown remains a part of you wherever you go. No matter how successful you may become or how far you travel, your hometown welcomes you back as that little kid who rode a bike or jumped a rope or skipped a stone or played football in the neighbor's yard or hockey at the local rink. While things change in a hometown, some things remain the same and that's the feeling you get when returning. It wraps you up like a blanket and tells you, "Welcome Home!"

Comments

  1. ~ Sil in CoreaJuly 28, 2013 at 7:42 AM

    People in Korea who grew up in small towns share more in common with my small town upbringing in Maine. We hold the same values and "speak the same language," the language of the heart. I've also found this with villagers in Ireland and among Nigerians who were raised in small towns, too. I suspect that it is a world-wide characteristic. I would say that optimism and realistic thinking are balanced in most small-towners.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barbara Briggs WardJuly 28, 2013 at 11:52 AM

      Interesting. Guess small towns ground us no matter where we live.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Pinch of This and A Dash of That

Image
I recently made a few Raspberry Pies following my grandmother's recipe that is included in a cookbook featuring her recipes. It was put together by her oldest daughter. One of six daughters. I love using her recipes. They are quite simple. Basic. Born out of an era of raising a family on a farm where meals were homemade, and work and chores were nonstop and produce came from the garden, some of that produce eventually canned or stored in a root cellar. In a few of my grandmother's recipes, her instructions include words such as a pinch, a dash, a sprinkle or a hint as ways of measurement of certain ingredients. In the Raspberry Pie recipe, her instruction was to add a pinch of salt. Before, when coming upon that particular instruction, I would put a little bit of salt in a bowl or on a plate and take a pinch of it. Then add the pinch to the other ingredients. But this time I was curious. For whatever the reason, I asked Mr. Google what the instruction for a Pinch of an ingredie
Read more

Those Small Milk Cartons With Straws

Image
I can't remember what elementary grade I was in when taking a morning break to enjoy a small, sometimes cold and sometimes not so cold small container of whole milk with my classmates. The Milk Break was part of the daily schedule. I do remember how good it tasted. The milk didn't come in flavors. Not even chocolate. There was no fat free or calcium enriched or soybean milk. Just whole milk in individual cartons.  The cartons were either opened by the teacher and then the student put a straw into the milk or there was a sealed hole in the carton and either the student or teacher pushed a straw through the hole. Straws were not fancy or colored. They did not have brand names or licensed characters on them. They did not have loops, making it possible to watch the milk go around the loops as a student sucked on the straw. They did not come wrapped in cellophane attached to the carton.  Instead, the teacher would walk around each table full of students, stopping beside each student
Read more

Oh Those Netted Crinolines

Image
I hardly ever wore crinolines under my skirts way back when wearing crinolines underneath skirts was the fad. Not participating in a fad was unusual for me. After all, I ran to a department store located in the downtown of where I lived  the moment Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" grabbed my attention. I had to have bellbottoms and short-sleeved ribbed sweaters. I had to grow my hair down to my waist. But crinolines were a different story. I didn't like all of that netting. I didn't like my skirts pushed way out in front of me even when most of my friends wore crinolines all the time.  However, there are most always exceptions to most anything-even when it comes to wearing crinolines if crinolines aren't your thing. For me, that exception  came when my grandmother made me a velvet green dress to wear to a Christmas party. It was going to be held in a grand old hotel in that downtown where I lived. My date was a Freshman at a nearby college. He was so cute. We
Read more