Anyone from around, or been to....

[ghh3rd]

Thought a thread about where we are, or have been might be interesting. Wondering if it might snowball with "yeah, I used to live there" type of responses.

Anyway, born in Brooklyn in '53 (Gerritsen Beach), lived in Denver on Wabash Street off Colfax Ave. in early 60's, Kanta Mura Japan late 60's, Knob Nostor MO early 70's, Chicoppe MA 70's and St. Pete/Tampa mid 70's on. Fondest memories of going to go my grandparents cottage on Center Lake in Becket MA each summer when I was young. And in Brooklyn, the block parties when I was a kid, and my mother recalling that mothers were able to leave their babies in a buggy outside the grocery store while they shopped. And everyone knew their neighbors back then... amazing.

[abunaitoo]

In the Old days, people were so respectful of one another.
Being a good part of the community was very important.
People would watch out for each other. Even if they didn't know them well.
What's happened to us????

[shaner]

In the Old days, people were so respectful of one another.
Being a good part of the community was very important.
People would watch out for each other. Even if they didn't know them well.
What's happened to us????

I agree totally

Sent from my SCH-I435 using Tapatalk

[Blackwater]

I'm from Statesboro, GA, a little college town @ 50 mi. WNW of Savannah, and original home of the "Statesboro Blues," written by Blind Willie McTell. Willie used to stay at the old Jaeckyl Hotel in downtown, near the school for the blind that was located here at that time. He'd play and sing on street corners for change, and he must have done fairly well. He was one of the few guitarists who could play for Bessie Smith, who had her own unusual sense of timing. I think he just played it like he wanted to, and kept time, and let Bessie do with it what she willed. It's a growing college town with many very PC leaders. They "think they beez sumbody," mostly, but there are some good ones in our politics - just not enough. The college almost runs the town, and the "service community" surrounding it all does very well. Lots and lots of places to eat. We have a real mix of types of people here. Mostly just good ol' country folks, like those that attend my church, and peppered with the extreme PC college professors. I have to admit there are some good profs, too, but the only ones our local rag of a liberal newspaper writes about are the idjits. We have gangs here in that part of town where they typically hang out. Also have some truly primitive types of both races, who you need to keep an eye on. We have a good police and Sheriff's dept. - very professional and circumspect for "small town America." But the onslaught of liberalism has really taken its toll, along with the "entitlement" mentality. Most never read a book or learn anything after graduating high school. Some awfully talented folks, though, and the "I can do anything" spirit reigns pretty common here. Our industry is gone. The old foundry that once employed so many here is being dismantled. One of my closest friends was in charge of most of it. They're now taking down the building itself. Don't know if they'll take up the slab it was built on or not.

It's actually pretty cosmopolitan for a small southern town, at least in some ways, thanks to the college. Personally, I'd just as soon see that "diploma mill" go away, but that'll never happen. I think our politics would take a big step for the better if it weren't here, but .... we take what we've got to work with and do our best to make it something near "right."

My greatest joy is time spent on our little Ogeechee River - a marvelous place for a young lad to have grown up. I've written a song about it, partially, and need to finish it some time. Just expresses my love for that little river, and all it's meant to me. It's been called one of the last near pristine black water rivers (from which I derived my handle I use) in America. My family originally settled on its banks in 1763, and my direct lineage hasn't been more than 20 mi. from it since then. That old black mud gets in your veins, and it just keeps drawing you back like a bungee cord when you try to stray from it. Chock full of bass, stripers, bluegill, shellcrackers and those wonderful redbreast sunfish, that have been regarded as a local delicacy for eons now - a most highly aggressive and pugnacious sunfish! Plenty of woods, but most of it is pines, unfortunately. A small community nearby was an old turpentine settlement, and they still have an annual turpentine festival. A friend's wife is one of the planners for it each year, and he plays with his band for it annually.

Mostly, we're just plain, good ol' country folks who love life, no matter what it's serving up to us at any given time. Lots of lots of very flawed folks, but .... where isn't that true these days? Good will abounds, though, and ..... well, I have to grudgingly admit, I love the place. A man who doesn't love his home and roots just isn't much of a man, really, IMO, no matter how imperfect it might be. I live @ 5 mi. out of town, just far enough that most of the city life and folks don't matter much here, and close enough that it's really convenient to go there whenever I want or need to. If anything, I'll move further away from town, though. I'd love to build out on my small farm. There's a great place for it, but it'd kill my grandboys' hunting grounds, so .... that and lackamoney will probably keep me here for the duration. I can live with that, I think .... provided the Wicked Witch of the DC doesn't go in, at least.

[Half Dog]

Nothing special here but I grew up and learned to dip snuff in Shreveport, LA.

[WRideout]

I was born and raised in Oxnard California, fifty miles north of Los Angeles, and halfway to Santa Barbara. It's right where US 101 and the Pacific Coast Highway meet. Everybody has been there, but nobody remembers it. Oxnard was a largely agricultural town up into the sixties, when urban redevelopment in the Big City pushed a lot of people into the suburbs and made Oxnard and points north into a bedroom community.

When I was nineteen, I was desperate to get out of the house, and so joined the US Army in 1972. Went to Ft Ord for basic, then Ft Lewis WA first duty station. I finished out my tour with a year in Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany, as a medic in a Pershing missile battalion. We actually had warheads back then, and the cold war was in full force. The Germans loved us, because the alternative was to have the Russians take over. I was in Germany when Saigon fell in 1975.

After mustering out of the army, I lived in Ventura CA for a year, then moved to Chico, California, to go to college at Chico State U. The state prison is in Chino, CA at the other end of the state, and people were always asking me how I liked it in Chino. I would tell them it was the other state institution. I loved the Northern Central Valley, and that is where I seriously took up hunting and fishing. Waterfowl were everywhere in the rice growing country around Sacramento. When I was in school there was a split between the city folk from the Bay Area, and the local small town people. You could tell by looking which was which.

After college I took my family back to Oxnard, and began a career in environmental science (don't judge me.) I worked for Ventura County for a while, including a stint with the Sheriff's Crime Lab where I did blood alcohol testing and occasional firearms work and toxicology. In 1986 I moved to Lompoc, next to the Watergate prison, and eventually landed a job at Vandenberg AFB, handling the hazardous waste and wastewater that comes from a missile launch operation. When the cold war ended, I transferred to Oak Ridge TN and worked on the environmental cleanup at the nuclear research facilities there. In the late 1990's, the federal government cut off much of the funding for that project, and I ended up working in Greensburg PA at an electrical manufacturing plant.

Nowadays I am in Butler PA, which is a smallish town that somewhat resembles Oxnard where I grew up (except for the snow). I made a career change a while ago, and am now a drug and alcohol counselor at a halfway house. Butler is just north of Pittsburgh, in the rust belt where the main industries have all vanished. Many people in Butler commute to Pittsburgh, which is oddly becoming a center of high technology.

Wayne

[Budzilla 19]

Grew up in a small town in SW Louisiana, named Longville. Forestry was the main business, had a gravel pit. Graduated high school, went a semester to college,( wasn't for me) went to work, never looked back! Married a good Cajun red headed woman, had some kids, moved five miles from where I grew up, bought a house with my own shooting range on the property, spent 13 years on the road working, then came home to raise two llttle grandsons after my oldest son passed away, so I'm here now and loving every day!!! Cast boolits, learning to PC, hunting, fishing, lots of teaching little boys to be good men someday! That's my story.

[jcwit]

I'm born raised and live in No. Indiana, growing up out town was only 1,000 folks, today it's around 3 or 5 thousand, haven't looked it up lately. Anyone here ever visit Shipshewana, Ind, not the town I live in but pretty darn close!
If you've never visited here, please do, lots of friendly folks, myself excluded, LOL.

[JWT]

I grew up in Westland, Michigan where everyone's job was tied to the auto industry. Went to college at WMU in Kalamazoo, Michigan (the home of Bell's beer). Working for GM has lead me to spend large amounts of time living in Arlington Texas, Moraine Ohio, Oklahoma City, Shreveport Louisiana, Spring Hill Tennessee, Lordstown Ohio, and Janesville Wisconsin. I still live in Michigan in a suburb of Detroit called Berkley.

The problem with all that travel is that you get to find the best foods. I can't eat barbecue up north anymore, it's just doesn't measure up. And I've been craving a good crawfish etouffee for years...

[WRideout]

I grew up in Westland, Michigan where everyone's job was tied to the auto industry. Went to college at WMU in Kalamazoo, Michigan (the home of Bell's beer). Working for GM has lead me to spend large amounts of time living in Arlington Texas, Moraine Ohio, Oklahoma City, Shreveport Louisiana, Spring Hill Tennessee, Lordstown Ohio, and Janesville Wisconsin. I still live in Michigan in a suburb of Detroit called Berkley.

The problem with all that travel is that you get to find the best foods. I can't eat barbecue up north anymore, it's just doesn't measure up. And I've been craving a good crawfish etouffee for years...

When I moved to Pittsburgh area from TN, I realized there were some things you just don't hear around here, like,
1. That looks like a good place for barbecue.
2. There's no place to get a pizza around here.
3. Let's go juggin' for muskies.
4. That snowplow blade ruins the looks of my truck

[samari46]

Used to live on 179th street, Jamaica New York then in Elmont long island ny. After I got married we lived in Elmont for a bunch of years. Nice neighborhood with some great folks for neighbors. Always attended the local firehouse parties and had great fun, course one of my neighbors was a Capt in the fire dept and that helped. We supported them when they had their funding drives. After I retired moved to New Iberia, Louisiana and will be here until they shovel the dirt over me. Been down here over 20 years and do not have to shovel snow, ice storms and cold. Frank

[Freightman]

Hard to beat good southern bar-b-q. I have lived my 77 years in the Texas
panhandle, the forgotten part of Texas, I have seen hail the size of a vollyball ,sand storms where it was dark at noon blizzards with 90 mph wind range fires with the same 90mph wind. Our rivers run under ground but it is home you can see 30 miles on a clear day , and no one beats our sunsets .

[Rufus Krile]

Born and raised in Sherman, TX up north of Dallas. College in Nacogdoches, army in El Paso and San Angelo (and other less desirous places), and oilfield after that in, mostly, South Texas. Retired for about 5yrs now and happy as a clam. (That would be a clam with the aches and pains of your average 69yr old curmudgeon...)

[Land Owner]

Rufus, I resemble those remarks...but was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. The Coast Guard is big here and I did my stint in the military with them. This state is very good about growing Tourists. Hunting and fishing are superb though. I have been to the Arctic, the Antarctic, "everything" in the Pacific in between those two, and quite a few places in Europe. New Zealand is very nice. Australia is superb. I look forward to the "forever weekend" time of life, still a few years ahead of me, rather than this work-a-day world of deadlines, submittals, proposals, contracts, clients, and demands. Getting into the woods to plant food plots, sight in a rifle, or just sit and watch for wildlife in season is such a relief.

[Isaac]

Born and raised in the Baltimore suburbs. During my youth, depending on the direction, you could be 5-8 miles out of the city and be in the country with folks who had never been in the city. I-95 took care of that. Urban sprawl, gov't jobs and corporations have made 50-100 mile commutes the norm. Met my wife 37 years ago, began having children and fled west to what used to be Western Maryland. In a few more years that area will be just the western edge of D.C and Baltimore urban areas. Wife retired last year. I have six more to go to retire for a second time. Looking for some place out of Maryland to spend our glory days.

Isaac.

[Shawlerbrook]

Spent my entire life in Upstate NY. Born in Utica and lived in Syracuse, Albany, Schenectady and now in rural Chenango County. But I have traveled to Canada, Maine, Florida, Texas ,California and the entire east coast. Still a lot of places on my bucket list.

[Harter66]

I was born a desert rat ..... Right dead center of the Mojave desert .
Early on we spent 2 hunting seasons in Moab UT then back to the desert . That lasted until school was out . We left the Inyo and Kern county lines at the 395/14 jct and went north stopping 60 miles out US 50/95A in 1975 . My folks ran a boarding kennel and grooming shop there from 76-96 . I bounced around some . The 7 months I spent in Wichita ks was the longest 10 yr of my life . Back home to the desert . I lived in Reno and a couple of other little burgs finally settling down at Walker Lake.

Life calls and it is getting to be time for me to give back the 18 yr Mom and Dad spent on little only me . Next stop about 90 miles north of Texarkana TX,AR ........... I'll have to vacation in a wood kiln about once a month so I don't drown .....

[The Governor]

Thought a thread about where we are, or have been might be interesting. Wondering if it might snowball with "yeah, I used to live there" type of responses.

Anyway, born in Brooklyn in '53 (Gerritsen Beach), lived in Denver on Wabash Street off Colfax Ave. in early 60's, Kanta Mura Japan late 60's, Knob Nostor MO early 70's, Chicoppe MA 70's and St. Pete/Tampa mid 70's on. Fondest memories of going to go my grandparents cottage on Center Lake in Becket MA each summer when I was young. And in Brooklyn, the block parties when I was a kid, and my mother recalling that mothers were able to leave their babies in a buggy outside the grocery store while they shopped. And everyone knew their neighbors back then... amazing.

Hey, might shoot at Bill Jacksons Friday. LMK if you want to go.

[06ackley]

Born and raised in northern Indiana. Grew up in Goshen now work in middlebury. Jcwit you are correct Shipshewana is a nice town just not on Wednesday in the summer...

[Scorpion8]

Thought a thread about where we are, or have been might be interesting.

I was born in (then) West Germany to an Army Dad. We moved all over the East Coast, but we called Philly home. Finally settled in Gettysburg, PA when Dad retired after 32 years in the Army where I went to high school. Joined the Navy thru NROTC in college, and spent all my Navy tours up and down the east coast (Newport, RI; Philly, PA; Norfolk, VA) except for a single jaunt out west (Monterey, CA) which was like a trip to a different solar system. Weird politics. Anyway my last tour in the Navy they exiled me to a radar station (well, not really) in Alaska. Remote duty in Juneau with a small staff of contingency planners. Loved it so much I retired here. I had the last laugh on them. 20 years later I still love it here. Ya'll come visit now, ya'hear!