I was born in a small town in Quebec called Rouyn-Noranda. One of those pulp-mill / mining towns that stinks, with no trees, no grass & no life. In the late 60's Trudeau brought in the french language laws and my English speaking parents decided to leave. My father spoke only a little french and my mother was fluent, but in Parisian french, not the patois of Quebec. So we moved to BC. I've never been back, although I would love to visit Quebec City someday

Let Me Rant!

I am constantly amazed and pleased to see the series of thoughts that bounce thru Jim's brain and end up on the screen as coherent streams that I can never seem to explain to others ( why I find the writing of James Lileks so fun to read).

Back east where I'm from you don't leave, your driven out by the high cost.
I left Armonk, which I loved dearly, but could not afford.

Armonk had a singer too, not as great, but same ending.

Laura Brannigan. Her brother was my best friend when I was little.

Portsmouth, VA...off to St.Louie...a brief stint in NC...one 5 year lay-over in TN..all due to divorce (I was a kid)..then a decade in LA,CA. Left to work in radio; returned to TN to work in insurance(!) I miss 300 days of sunshine but TN showed an 800% reduction in gun fire. Leaving TN for CA? AWESOME! Returning with non-haddocky wife and 2 kids....awesomer.

Technically, New Martinsville, WV, but grew up in Akron, OH (dad got a job transfer back home.) I joke that Akron is a great town to be *from*, but I left without rancor -- went to college in Pennsylvania, then jobs in Buffalo and suburban Chicago.

My suburb feels surprisingly like home to me now, almost as if I were a native.

Congratulations on your new bucket, James.

I was born in Chicago, and our first, tiny home was in Glenview, Illinois, when it was still bucolic enough that I could wheel my tricycle from our back yard straight into a cornfield. My father got a good job with an ad agency in Toronto so, when I was five, we packed up and immigrated to Canada, living in the suburb then known as Islington in the first of three progressively nicer homes in Toronto's west end.

I moved to Windsor, Ontario, just south of Detroit, to finish university. A classmate introduced me to this nice American girl who lived across the border in what was then East Detroit (now "Eastpointe," how stylish!). We got married and lived in Warren, Michigan, just north of Detroit, for six years. We had a son, Walter, who pretty much doubled everything that is good in my life.

Since then, work has taken me to Sidney, in west central Ohio, then Iola, in north central Wisconsin, and finally last year (after I lost my "bucket" with a company I'd written for over a decade) to Bellefonte, a Victorian town established in 1795 in central Pennsylvania, near State College.

I lack New York, Indiana (which barely counts for lake frontage) and --- oddly enough --- Minnesota to complete my life circuit of the Great Lakes, an honor I'd just as soon not attain. The last move cost upwards of $11,000, and we're still digging through boxes.

James Lileks' rich evocation of an incredible sense of home --- the one he grew up in, the one he makes now with his wife and Gnat --- are among the things I most enjoy about him, the Bleat and the vast panoply of enjoyments he offers at www.lileks.com ("unpacking the past with joy and ambivalence since 1996"). I've never been to Fargo, and only briefly to Minneapolis, but he brings them to life so vividly that you can almost taste the tuna hot dish and feel the plastic on the sofas!

Do you really "...have to wonder how her life would have unfolded if she’d stayed" home in small-town middle America"?

With respect, I don't think so. Her life would have been better, far happier, and almost certainly much longer. (Her daughter, too, wouldn't have been a bundle of second-generation neuroses and inherited pathologies.)

Google the sad end in summary of Garland's story and you learn that she was just 47, full of sleeping pills, and that "everybody loved her" ... everybody but Frances Gumm, apparently. (As I recall, "everyone loved" Marilyn Monroe, too --- not to mention Elvis, Jim Morrison, etc. ad nauseum)

When you're very, very young, deeply impressed by what you see and unaware of what you don't yet know, Garland's meteoric life story has great appeal. Young people don't see those brassy, rouged twin whores, Glamour and Fame, as the flattering, life-sapping, withering harpies they truly are.

As you age, have a family, enjoy the profound pleasures of a modest life and the peaceful retreat of relative obscurity, I think most of us come to regard a life like that lived by Gumm/Garland as a curse and a tragedy ... even if it's set to music and recorded in Technicolor.

Born in Stuart Circle Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, where there stands a statue of J.E.B. Stuart in the Circle on Monument Avenue...

Fifty-two years later, I am in Williamsburg, a mere fifty miles from home... where there is a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Merchants Square.

Of course, between birth and now were numerous moves: Tacoma, Denver, Sarasota, and Limestone Cove,TN, to name but a few - I married the Last Real Circus Promoter.

Home is and always will be where Mom-n-'em are, no matter how old you are.

Born in Indianapolis in 1959. Moved to the Cleveland area in 1963 when Dad got transferred. Went to college at Miami U. near Cincinnati. Dad got transferred to Houston in 1978. Been a non-native Texan ever since.

I am a proud TEXAN from the Lone Star State. Where else? I was born and raised in Waco. Yes, the place see3ms to be famous for the botched FBI raid. When I married I moved away for the bright lights and fun of Dallas, Houston, and various other Texas cities. Can you believe I moved from Houston to Dilley, TX. That's right Dilley, TX home of not much of anything. It is down the road from Pearsall (Home of the giant concrete Peanut because peanuts are big business in the area, Or at least they were.) and just north of Cotulla (Famous for where Lyndon Baines Johnson taught school for a few years.). After living in various places in Texas for 25 years I have moved back to Waco. Yes the ancestoral stomping grounds. Waco has really changed in those 25 years but it is still so much like I rememeber.

Keep up the good work and remember the words of that famous man from North of the border: "Keep your stick on ther ice."

I spent the first half of my childhood living outside Cedarville-- a town with roughly 600 people, in Surprise Valley, CA. My folks moved to Washington, a place called Twisp in the Methow (Met-how) valley, when I was 13. Nice place, fairly small-- the district school was small enough that my entire grade had a class together, once a day. (55 kids can be a little tough, but it was nice.)

I left to join the Navy because I knew that if I didn't leave, I'd stay there forever, never get around to going to college, never get to see anything else. There are dozens of thirty-somethings that are doing the same job they did when they left high school. Hating it. Vicious. (There's the folks who are HAPPY there, but a large number of them are the ones that left for college, then came back with their kids.)

After five years-- two of them on a ship out of Japan-- I'm living a day's drive from my parents. I guess I'm still young enough that I don't want to be there, even though I haven't cared about "stuff doesn't happen here" since I was about... six? Seven? That's when I realized that having "stuff" happen generally a mixed blessing, and a not very nicely mixed one at that.

Lileks has a blog? Great! He gets paid to blog by the tribune? Great! If I read it, then I should pay something for the privilege. I live near hollywood ca, and I don't think the tribune boy's bike delivers this far. But how do I buy a subscription online?

I was born in Massillon, Ohio--in the same hospital where my mom was born. She'd gone there to have me from Delaware, where she and my father lived, so her mom could help out with my two older brothers. We moved from Massillon back to Dover while I was young--but before I turned a year old, we were in Westerville, OH where dad was working.

I left because I was a kid and I had no real choice. But the thing is, my memory isn't of Massillon or even Westerville. I turned 4 years old when the folks moved us all to Palatine, IL near Chicago. Palatine is a suburb, yes, but from 1969 to 1974, it was a small town and a place where I knew all my neighbors, counted them friends and was allowed, at the age of 6 or 7, to be left alone-untouched till suppertime, astride my bicycle, at Craig and Corey's (the twins) house, or just out exploring at the creek, down the bike-path or over to the K-mart where the sold Icee's.

California has its charms, one of which is my beautiful native Californian wife-and now, our daughter. But, there's no bike-path here. There's no creek with crawfish or fields where kids can run and hide in the tall grass--too many rattlesnakes, I suppose. There are still Icee's though--it's just that in order to get one, you have to drive to it and keep an eye on your child in the crowded store. And she doesn't get to go out in front of the house by herself too often, let alone on her bicycle down the street without mom or dad around.

I miss the Midwest--or at least, my childhood there.

I was born on Long Island, raised in Norcross GA, and have lived in Athens for more then a decade. Athens is one of those small college towns. It has the small town atmosphere, but also has a lot of the benefits of a city. A great place to live, as long as you don't mind 30,000+ college students.

I was born in Rome, NY and grew up in the small town of Verona, NY (approx. 900 folks). Went to the local central school (VVS - Vernon Verona Sherrill) with a graduating class of about 220 (swelled by kids from the "city" of Sherrill - it had about 7000 residents).

Left for college in Rochester (NY, not MN), then grad school, and now back in Rochester teaching at RIT. I live in a suburb that's a lot like my old home town in terms of houses and lots, but much bigger (about 20000) in population. Close enough to Verona for government work.

I was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (HQ for Phillips 66 but still somehow "small"). We lived fifteen miles up the road in Copan until I was ten. Forty years ago the population was just over 600, and it's not much bigger today. I pretty much had the run of the town by the time I was six. We picked wild blackberries on the hill south of my Grandmother's house. She taught me how to twist a possum out of a hollow tree. We didn't lock the doors at night until I was in High School (I blame TV). It was a great place for a kid.

I still love the place and people, and I'll be back there next week to visit my mother and extended family. My grandmother is 94, and she was still mowing her own (big) yard until a couple of years ago. One of the neighbor boys still hasn't convinced her to let him hoe the garden for her.

Couldn't agree with you more civildefense. Some people are lucky enough to realize what is really important in life before they kill themselves with drugs at the age of 47. Very sad indeed!

I was born in Abilene, Texas, and I didn't leave so much as was taken away. First my father, then my husband, had jobs that meant moving from place to place continually, until retirement washed us up in southwest Ohio. I have visited, or lived in, fourteen different countries (not counting Caribbean islands), and all but ten of the United States. Alas, I will never be nostalgic for, nor attached to, any particular place. So even though we have been here for nearly twenty years (five times longer than I have ever lived anywhere), I can't quite shake the nagging feeling that I will eventually pull up stakes at least one more time. It's like that song that goes: "I was born under a wandering star."

I was born in St.Paul and lived on Daly St. My parents both spent their childhood on Jefferson near the Palace Playground. My father was one of the "Bohunks" (Bohemians) and had the audacity to marry an Irish girl whom he had known since kindergarten. After living in St. Paul for his first forty years (with WWII in between), 3M transferred my father to Hutchinson MN for a year and then to central New Jersey. My parents lived the next 40 years of their lives here. My Mom is buried in Freehold NJ, but my Dad always wanted a military burial back at Fort Snelling in MN. We will be bringing his ashes there in the next few weeks. I spent most of grammar school and all of high school in New Jersey, so it always felt like "home" to me. I moved to New England for college and lived up there for 15 years (Connecticut, Vermont, back to Connecticut), marrying a wonderful Vermont girl 30 years ago. I was transferred to New Jersey back in the 80's and we have made the Trenton NJ area our home ever since. In fact, I now work about six blocks from the spot where I spent two years at Cathedral High School, which was closed up about five years after I graduated. Of my seven siblings, four live within twenty miles, one lives in CA, one in DC, and one in MA. We are all still very close, and the next generation thinks of New Jersey as their home.

Bridgeport Conn. -then know as the murder capital of the US. I went north to Middletown for graduate school and to Troy NY for post docs and then ended up in West Texas. Moved again to Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, and finally in Denton for 15 years. I can see the stars here, we have cows, and I'll stay unless it grows too much. I've spend most of my live in large cities and have no desire to go back.

I'm from a sleepy little shantytown called Shalersville, located in Portage County, Ohio. Shalersville was and pretty much still is, a cross-roads at OH44 and OH303.
I remember exploring 100 acre cow pastures with a dense woods, that's not so dense, though not completely explored. I remember climbing climbing to the upper boughs of the numerous old fir trees and just sitting near the top, swaying with the breeze. Being eight years old in rural Ohio then was a good thing.
Now that I've grown up and experienced a bit of the good and bitter fruits of life, I long for a new little town. I think I've found it in my wife's hometown. The people are warm and wonderful, the food is outstanding and the place is very Ozish. The travel is bit of a booger, it's Kunming. China
Being 47 years old, my ruby slippers need to be a size 12.
回家 没房子。
hui jia, mei fangzi., No place like home.

Nice to see JL get the star treatment he deserves.

Charles City, Iowa.
To Iowa City for college.
Tennessee for the US Army.
Heidelberg Germany for the Army.
Back home to Mesa AZ for the lovely, lovely weather.
In the Army they told us the best assignments were the one you just left and the one you're about to go to.
I think the same applies to hometowns.

As one of the few and rare English Lit majors to come from one of those "one time" horribly politically incorrect male military institutions from the south let me begin by telling you how much I enjoy your writing. To be honest today's invokes a sense of community, belonging and place in the world that I (and I'm afraid my daughter) have never known.

"Where am I from" that’s a good question. I was born at Kadena AFB, Okinawa Japan. Dad was in the USAF mom is a 1st generation UK immigrant. On my Mom’s side I’m at least 4th generation military, with cousins overseas still serving in the same regiment as Grand dad, great-granddad, great-great..you get the picture. Finally settled in Atlanta, well just outside the big city. When I was going to high school there were no tattoo parlors or pawn shops (my 1st test of a neighborhood) nearby, now, well it is ATL. After college my bride and I have been sent to: Newport RI, Norfolk VA, Panama City Beach FL, Yorktown VA, Honolulu HI, Los Angeles CA, Homer AK, and now Sitka AK. Big city’s, small towns, north, south, east and west with the Pacific thrown in for good measure. We’ve never been anywhere for more than three years and to be honest…have loved every minute of it.

My lovely wife of 16 years (who incidentally was born and raised in Wilkes-Barre PA) has gone out of her way to ensure wherever we went home was where I came home after each deployment, patrol, or day at the office. My daughter has driven cross country six times now, you try that in a SUV two adults, one kid, a 80 lbs dog, and a cage of mice you had to hide at every border crossing because…well because it seemed fun to sneak things into Canada. We’ve endured Hurricanes, Tsunami Alerts, Earthquakes, Wild Fires. Endured wickedly hot summers (try 110) and bitterly cold winters (it is Alaska..duh!) and never seemed to have the right clothes for the move…Just why does the military send you from California to Alaska? We might not have deep roots in a community but we do have strong ones, sort of like those walking trees you see in the pacific.

So where is home now? That’s easy home is where ever the military sends us.

Buffalo, New York, where a young Harold Arlen grew up and moved to Los Angeles to pen "Over the Rainbow".

I also moved to Los Angeles as that is where my wife was from - we met in the Army while we were both stationed in Germany.

I grew up in South Buffalo, played on the same fields where Warren Spahn once pitched, attended the same high school as Tim Russert - later left that school because even the South Buffalo kids became elitist there, attended West Point and then lived in Kentucky, Georgia, Germany and Louisiana - I ended up in Southern California when I left the Army in the eighties. Buffalo is still home - as my wife always says, you can take the boy out of Buffalo, but you can never take Buffalo out of the boy. My youngest son wants to go to school there, as he loves the people and the area - it was (is) a great place to grow up.

There is a festival every week in Western New York in the summer, and I try to go back for one every year or at least every other year.

If you get a chance, listen to a version of Over the Rainbow that has all the lyrics - the movie knocks out much of the beginning - my favorite version is by WNY alum Don Potter - you can only find it on vinyl now.

Thanks James, for bringing me back to the beginning of my Rainbow.

I'm from San Pedro, California. Went to UCLA and met my husband. When we married we moved to Westchester, California which is about 20 miles from San Pedro. Not very far from the original location.

I was born in Tennessee, where my Dad had a teaching job, but we moved back to NC when I was four, and although I've moved around a lot it's almost always been in in this state. My father's family is from Ruffin, where I live now, and has been here since 1810. When I was 21 I got married and we ran off to Seattle; I stayed there 2 1/2 years, and liked it a lot, but when the marriage broke up I moved right back here.

For a long time I really felt like I had to move somewhere else, although I never did. Why? Partly because my family casts a long shadow, and I wanted to get out from under it; partly because I had friends who seemed to be living much more exciting lives elsewhere. As I've gotten older, that impulse has been tempered quite a bit; I really want to travel more, but I no longer feel compelled to leave here for good.

~Lee

Born in Japan but spent virtually all of my growing up years in northern Minnesota (Thief River Falls) and western North Dakota (Dickinson). Those are the places that feel like home and form the basis for an intuitive sense of connection with much of Mr. Lileks' writing.

Not to mention that he's just plain witty and funny.

So where am I now? South Carolina. The academic career path takes you to some places you might never have imagined living. Fortunately, I actually like it here.

Born and raised in Southern California, mostly in Ventura county. There was, however, one unfortunate stint in the high desert. Want to know what really fouled Judy Garland up? She spent time in Lancaster, California. No one could live there without becoming a little 'tetched in the head.' Look at me, for corn's sake: I became a blogger.

It is always intriguing to read peoples impressions of the fast lane/slow lane analogy. It tells us so much about ourselves. My favorite story came from "Parenthood" with Steve Martin, when Granma was telling about her suiters,,,,one who went on the Merry-Go-Round, the other that went on Roller Coaster. How apt. Which did you choose?

I was born in The Bronx and raised out on Long Island. My Dad died when I was 10 and the family got a wee bit dysfunctional after that. On my 21st birthday I moved out here to Phoenix, and that is that.

Oh, you want to know WHY I left, eh? We hardly know one another but it's no secret, it's not like I chopped my sister up into 23 pieces or anything.

I left to get away from failure. I was failing at everything - school, girlfriends,family relations, the whole magilla.

A stuffed shirt would look back and say he left home because he needed a fresh start, a bit of elbow room, etc.

No, I left because I was d---d miserable and Arizona was pretty in the winter. There! That wasn't so bad. (It wasn't very interesting, either.) Oh well, you asked. I told.

I was born in New York in the early 70s, but grew up in Sarasota Florida for economic reasons, and then moved to Australia in my late 20's following a wise woman that happened to be my wife.

The first edition of my very first "underground paper" in 1970 had, somewhere in its pages, a photo of the Mayor of Munchkinland as an old man working a sideshow.

Years later, when I worked at Penthouse for the first time, I'd go to meetings at the Guccione place which, at that time, was a rental of the old Judy Garland townhouse on the Upper East Side. Complete with her very ornate Venetian piano. We'd wait and bang about on the keys when we got really bored. It was never in tune.

Jay NY, and later Lake Placid, a mere 18 miles away. I've lived in Houston TX since 1992 and will never go back to the land of snow and desolation (sorry, MN folks). My particular corner of snowiness being inside a NY state park, we also had crushing taxes and a lousy economy. Lake Placid is in the 2nd poorest county in NY, despite all the tourism. Didn't know that, did you? Mario Cuomo once referred to us as the "abject poor of Essex County." We didn't vote for him.

Houston is fantastic. Give me air you can see, strip malls and grass that grows in the cracks of a 16 lane freeway in January, thank you very much. This is MY HOME.

The town I grew up in was Los Alamos, New Mexico, which was the birthplace of the atomic bomb. It was actually a relatively nice little town with a rather interesting history to it (the town's very existence was a government secret until the end of World War 2, and even then, it wasn't until 1955 that people were allowed to enter and leave freely.) The main employer in town is the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which attracted a lot of eggheads (town officials would frequently brag about having one of the highest percentages of PhDs per capita) which meant there was no shortage of eccentrics in town. There were portions of the outlying areas which were not safe to enter due to radioactivity, and one field not too far from my house that was blocked off due to a risk of unexploded ordinance (it was later cleaned up.) It was about 12 years ago that my family left for the greener pastures of the Seattle area, and in retrospect, that was probably a good thing, because being basically a company town for the government, there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity there. A few years after I left, a controlled burn in a nearby forest went out of control and burned down hundreds of houses, which is tragic, but might just be one of the best things that ever happened to the place, since most of what got burned down was ugly government houses from the 40s. One of these days I'll have to make the trip back to visit though, assuming the radiation levels aren't too high...

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, living now in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

I left originally to go to college in New Orleans, knowing that wherever I went, it had to have at least one state between me and the rest of my family. Nothing against them, just one of those "MUST HAVE REAL INDEPENDENCE" things that's ruined if your parents can drop by and do your laundry. (I also found out that Mardi Gras is only fun once.)

I wound up here for the most basic of reasons; I fell in love and the guy wanted to stay in his hometown. I still have the guy, and I like the hometown a lot; small-town amiability and low crime rates, but the place is populated almost entirely with scientists and engineers. There are elk in my backyard. I'm happy.

On a bus in NYC in the 80's I sat next to Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch (and Miss Gulch) from The Wizard of Oz. That's not why I left Orlando to go to NYC, or why I left NYC and came to Austin. But I do believe there is "the right place" (or not the wrong place) at "the right time" for most people, and that the urge to leave or return should be honored as much as possible.

And blooming where we're planted is often the best way to start.

I was born in Virgina, MN. Grew up in Minneapolis. Moved to Las Vegas, NV in 1999 by way of job relocation. Still feel like a stranger in a strange land!

It was the 1930s I was an 11 year old boy in a small town in western Pennsylvania. My parents were divorced which was a minor scandal in those days. Also it was the time of the great depression. My father had a difficult time finding a home for my brother and me. A family in California offered to take us. It was the best thing that could have happened.

I was born in the Great State of Minnesota on a fateful day in April 1968 and grew up in and around the City of Lakes.

We lived a pseudo-nomadic existence during my early years, moving somewhere around 16 times during my first 18 years of life. That's what happens when you rent your home, not buy it. The general pattern was to move out the 'burbs (Crystal, Richfield, Brooklyn Park, Anoka, Coon Rapids) and then back to wellspring of life which called our name—North Minneapolis, where Grandma's house was always waiting and available.

Man is not permanent, nor are grandmothers, and with the passage of time came the point at which the wellspring of life was no more. Grandma's house ceased to be Grandma's house. Despite this loss, North Minneapolis refused to yield its hold our our family. When the time for our last foray into the 'burbs came to an end, North Minneapolis called out to us. And though North Minneapolis failed to prove us with a single, permanent abode, it generously offered up several pseudo-permanent abodes in land of my forbearers.

Despite the incredible gravitational forces of the City of Lakes and its North Side on the life of my family, personally, I managed to achieve escape velocity in my 27th year of being Minnesotan.

(Which raises the question, "Does one ever truly stop being Minnesotan?")

In July of 1995, I found myself on a Northwest 747 bound for Osaka, Japan. It was my destiny to bring unto the people of the Land of Wa the language of government and commerce, the language of entertainment and love, the language of the United Nations and the greater world—English.

Why did I go to Japan? The answer is a single word—DESPERATION. After graduating from Mankato State University with degrees in social studies, speech communication, and secondary education, I found myself unable to garner meaningful, full-time employment in my chosen profession. Despite a résumé chock full of impressive academic achievements, absent from my résumé was the one, tiny item that prospective employers thought more important than GPA and national speech awards... EXPERIENCE.

When the opportunity to teach English in Japan presented itself to me, I seized that opportunity like a hungry muskelunge seizes on to a child's ankle.

The original plan was to teach English in Japan for two years. During that time I would:

1. Gain that highly prized classroom experience.
2. Repay the national debt sized personal debt I accrued during my college years.

You know what they say about plans, especially the best laid ones.

I wound up spending the next six years in the Kansai area of Japan (also referred to as the Kinki region) teaching English to students of all ages.

It seems that one cannot escape their fate and my life in Japan resembled pseudo-nomadic life in Minnesota. While in Japan I lived in three different cities (Kishiwada, Wakayama and Izumiotsu ) in six years, worked for three different employers, and taught at roughly a dozen different schools. Variety is the spice of life, but fate seems to enjoy double-dipping mine in the wasabi.

Fickle is fate, and after six years of finding myself lost and then found in translation, fate would return me to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Of course, fate would have to return me to the Land of 10,000 Lakes on September 11, 2001. But that is another story. Despite its fickle nature, fate can too be kind and generous. By leading me to Japan, more specifically the city of Izumiotsu, fate introduced me to the woman who is now my wife. But that too is another story.

For now, fate has seen fit to deposit this pseudo-nomadic wanderer right in the heart of Downtown Minneapolis. This marks the fourth year we have lived in our apartment nestled between Loring Park and Eat Street. What if any wanderings might fate have in store for us?

Stay tuned...

Though I was born in a different state, a month later my father would relocate my mother and me to Augusta, Kansas, a small town of around 8,000 - 9,000 just 30 minutes east of Wichita in Southcentral Kansas.

This town would be my home for the next 19 years of my life.

For the first two months of college, I would return to Augusta during the weekends, a journey that would end when severe flooding of the southern third of town destroyed my childhood home during the Halloween weekend of 1998.

After that, I had little desire to go back.

By 2003, I also had little desire to remain in Kansas, feeling burned out with college and life in general, and found my escape via a dear friend I met online two years before.

A week after "graduating" from Wichita State--fell six credits short, actually--I arrived in Tacoma, Washington, and have been here ever since.

As of last year, my mother returned to her home in Southwestern Virginia, while my father eventually returned to where I was born, Louisville, Kentucky.

Next year, my high school class will have their first reunion in ten years, and it seems a majority of my classmates haven't left the area. Let's just say I can't wait to see if anything has changed since I last actually visited the town four years ago.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Nice area! Used to date a girl while at UNM whose parents both worked at the labs and lived in White Rock. I wish I were there now...

Born in a small town on the prairie of Montana (um, there is no other kind out there), 30 miles or so from the barb-wire fence that makes it Alberta. My father was a nomad, never finding perfect pasture anywhere...but Mom made it Home wherever we were. I attended 12 schools (First Grade was one room, 10 kids & a teacher in Phillips County, Montana) with driver's license in 10 different states. (Montana, Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, California, Texas, Indiana, Maine, Tennessee, Hawai'i, Florida. Had a dl in all but Colorado & Maryland...only added 6 of these since I married the Navy! Also spent 7 months of 7th grade in Germany & 3 years in southern Alberta), then in my late 20's I married a Sailor (a Hoosier with wanderlust) & made good use of being able to move without much trauma. Twenty-two years later, we're retired in the only house we ever bought, in Florida, where we're waiting on boot camp for son-in-law & first grandchild due in October. Life Is Good. I miss the wide open spaces but James' writing puts a bandaid on the pain.

Originally, I'm from New York City (Queens and the Bronx - my folks moved to Co-op City after I was accepted into the Bronx HS of Science). My father was Chief of Transportation for the New York City Dept of Hospitals (he passed away 2 years ago at the age of 96 -he was also a retired Army officer who served in WW2 and Korea). I left when I joined the military and have lived in several US locations as well as Japan. My heart will always be in New York, though. Things have been slow (writing-wise) for me lately. My biggest claim to fame - if you Google my name, I'm number one on the hit list (weird, no?)Now, I live in a small town called Olive Branch, Mississippi. Go figure.

I was born and raised in Allentown, PA. In the 50's and 60's a very nice place. About equidistant between Phila and NYC. Took about 75-90 minutes to get to NYC. At one time it was a thriving town - Bethlehem Steel, Mack Trucks, AT&T. Banks on every street corner.

A little perspective: The Bethlehem Steel plant was 1/2 mile wide and 12 miles long! AT&T had one of the largest buildings in the world.

I attended Lehigh and Penn State. The rude awakening for me was after graduation I found there were no jobs for educated, technical people in PA or NY. I wound up working for NASA, which in the long run was much better than staying in Allentown.

I left in 1971 - and never looked back. AT&T dissolved, Mack Trucks moved to the south, and Bethlehem Steel went completely bankrupt. There is nothing left of Allentown - except an empty shell.

I have several observations about Minneapoils (I don't intend any personal criticism to midwesterners, but more words of advice):

You people who were born and raised here need to get out and explore other locals. I find that there is a strong 'socialist' aspect in the midwest. Not to be political, but coming from Pennsylvaina, it is as obvious as the nose on ones face.

Secondly is that there is very little 'old stuff' here that is worth preserving: grain elevators, beer signs, or crack houses on Penn Ave N, etc are not precious. It doesn't matter who built the house in 1895, it doesn't matter how many kids grew up in that house. Life is for the living. I think Mpls would be a lot better off if portions were 'dozed' and replatted for middle class homes, for people to build on. If this were done, I think the city would be #1 in the nation.

Thirdly the Bethlehem Steel and NWA seem to be in parallel universes. Nobody in Allentown liked the Bethlehem Steel. Even though many worked there, they hated it. The Steel had continual labor unrest and dissatisfaction. I think NWA may go the way of Bethlehem Steel.

My last word of advice: Don't attend any class reunions. It's done, it's over, forget your curiouosity. It's worst than picking someone up in a bar at 1:55 AM!

Lawton, Iowa, population 497. Graduation class had 53 students. From there: Iowa City, Costa Mesa CA, Austin TX, Chicago.

Reason left: insufficient liquor stores.

Born and raised in Sacramento, child of an engineer. Went to college in Spokane, got married In Eugene, Oregon, and moved to Denver.

Husband got promoted— to a small satellite city of Sacramento.

Leave? Just when I thought I was free...

(As a side note, I saw somebody write a column about the interchangability of mid-size towns. Two of the towns in the list were Spokane and Eugene, a juxtaposition that had me in hysterics. To begin with, Eugene has an anarchist on the city council...)

Born in Menomonie, WI, we moved to St.Paul when I was 3. Into the, then brand new, Roosevelt Homes, otherwise known as "The Projects". (Historic note, right next door lived Louie Anderson, 2 years younger, and of course, a nonperson!) Unlike my older sibs, I never thought of myself as a Wisconsinite (or whatever they call themselves), I was a Minnesotan. Later, in the 6th grade, we moved to the ever popular Selby-Dale area. I guess it's gotten much more stylish now. The upstairs apartment we rented for $120 per month, is now on the market for more than $500,000, that's for the whole house, my sister and her family rented the bottom half for $130!
After High School (Central class of 67) I went to college for a little over year until..........dum de dum dum...I flunk a class and was reclassified 1A. For those unfamilar with the term, "Prime Meat" describes it very well. Being basically a coward, I joined the Air Force. Was just gonna put my 4 years in, get out, and go back to St. Paul.
And then fate intervined. DAMN YOU FATE! I decided my girl, from the upper West Side, was all I needed, and, 9 months, 2 weeks after we married at Reformation Luthern, my daughter was born.
And from there on we moved from one place to another.......Kinchelow AFB, MI, Washington, DC, Chanute AFB, IL, Clark AB, Philippines, Denver, CO, Osan AB, Korea, Vandenberg AFB, CA, Dover AFB, DE, and finally, after 20 years, Wiesbaben, Germany. (You become adictive to SECURIY in "The Projects")
But I've alway been a Minnesotan. Still follow the Twins (pasionally), Wild (Damn you Stars!), Vikings and Timberwolves. For the 20 years I was in the Air Force, I always had Minnesota plates on my cars.
But.......I realized that folks don't have to live with -40 degree weather. Here in Las Vegas we complain about 40 degrees in the winter. Where I work as a civilian, recruiting Army Healthcare professionals. Very important work.
Every morning, after reading the Las Vegas Review-Journal, I go to work, and after checking my email, go to Star Trib and the Pioneer Press, just to see what's happening in the "real world". The Twin Cities will always be my "real world". Always!

I am from North Pole, Alaska.

No I'm not joking!
I left to go to school. With the exceptions of a few fields, UAF is abysmal.

Born in Richmond, VA, raised in Williamsburg, VA, went back to Richmond to attend VCU and remained in the historic Fan District for eight years (most times within a stone's throw of Monument Ave and it's Civil War monuments).

In 1991, my best friend and his wife moved to Boulder, CO, and I took two weeks vacation to help them move. Three months later, I was living in Colorado, and have been there ever since. But I still remain a Redskins fan!

Actually, my birth certificate says "Belleville, Illinois, but my father was career Air Force. And why an Air Force type was stationed at NAS Minneapolis is beyond me. But not beyond the DOD in 1953 and 1954.

Actually, my first memories are probably of the F2H crash in '54. It hit kitty corner across the street from where we lived.

I really remember very little, other than me and my daddy and another neighbor trying to get back home from cutting wood, with police cars, fire trucks, and whatnot, lining the streets up the hill to our home. My dear departed mother was scared to death by it all. Her comment was that she was in the bathroom at the time, which was a really good thing, overall.

But my old Daddy retired from the Air Force in Osceola, Wisconsin, and is still on the Village Board, and doing fine, at 81 and change. He's the guy you ought to go find and talk to.

Heh.

I just float through occasionally from down here in Arkansas to see what's going on "at home".

I was born in Sleepy Eye. My Dad moved us away from the farm when his interest in things mechanical turned into a business. Family always kept us coming back and I try to give my kids the feel of it, though we don't make it back as much as I wish we did. I know it's always a fine line between, "Sure wish we saw you more" and "We seem to know a bit too much".

Small towns, like every option in life, has its good points and bad points. The sense of community we desire can be flavored strongly by a few people when the community is small. Dad always spoke highly of the farming community.

I was born and reared in Des Moines, Iowa. (Why does the Mississippi run south? Because Iowa sucks.) My father turned down several promotions because he thought that I should continue my education in Des Moines.

While I no longer feel that I was very bright, when time came for college, I did send off to universities on both the east and west coasts. This was a long time ago; I was unwilling to pay a non-refundable $10 application fee. So I applied to ISU and Rice University, neither of which required an application fee.

Somewhat to my surprise (while I was in the psych ward at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, MN), I was accepted by Rice University. Since I was very young and very arrogant (I've overcome the young part), I decided to attend Rice University. (My year was the last year that Rice did not charge tuition; I am now convinced that they needed two students from Iowa, and I was the second one.)

Rice was, or at least should have been, a humbling experience. While I was at the top of my class in Des Moines, I was not prepared to cope with the competition at Rice.

On graduation, achieved by an assistant professor denied tenure who gave me a D- in math, I went to employment with Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. Initially, this did nothing to reduce my arrogance. The people I worked with ranged from hopelessly dumb to even more arrogant than I was.

It really was not that hard to program Fortran IV or SDS assembly in those days, but the people I was working with simply had no hope of coding anything. I spent 68 hour weeks in Oakland, CA, covering for men and women who could not follow a cooking recipie.

But Westinghouse could not do anything right. If you have ever heard of "Formica", it doesn't come from ants, but from "Formerly Micarta." Westinghouse had invented Micarta, and could not do anything with it. Nearly everything Westinghouse did, ended in disaster.

(We won't talk about a semi-drunken night in Toronto, when I was debugging an Intel 8080 system for a trade show.)

This has gone on too long.

I truly enjoy Lileks.

I'm from outside San Diego, where I lived from the age of 4 until 16, when I left for college. But now I'm a St. Pauler, or Paulite, or something. In between, I was in Boston, San Francisco and a bunch of little time spent in random places.

I left San Diego because I was 16 and I hated the sun, the sand, and the surf. I was 16, and had big ideas. I never wanted to live anywhere again that surfers were the dominant intellectual culture, where suburbs were the norm, where your friends were several miles and highway exits away.

Oh, and I wanted to go to college somewhere with snow, and with a city, and where science nerds had Nerd Pride, and where my parents couldn't come visit without 21 days' notice.

After I left, there was never anything to go back to. No family still there, and no friends. Life had moved on.

I can't imagine how people manage to not leave the place they are from.

btw, I arrived here because after 10 years in the SF Bay Area, I wanted to buy a house. I wanted to live somewhere where people were happy. I wanted to live somewhere with neighborhoods, a place like they had in all those old tv shows I watched. I wanted to have kids and have them grow up the way I imagined my dad and mom had done.

And in all honesty, I read the Bleat enough that I decided the Twin Cities had all those things. I found a job here, and we moved directly to St. Paul. Everywhere I go, I find people here in St. Paul who never left, or left and came home immediately. Strangest thing. What is it about this place?

Born in Milwaukee in the mid-50's, the folks moved us to a suburb of Milwaukee in 1960, which was home base as I went to college in Indiana. Dad was born there and graduated from Purdue. They had a vet school when Wisconsin didn't, but I ended up in Forestry, met and married an Indiana boy, and lived in Fort Wayne, IN, then near St Joe/Benton Harbor MI. After 10 years on the east side of Lake Michigan, we moved our 2 kids to just outside Madison, WI (70 miles from my first home) and have spent the next 15 years traveling the other direction for holidays. Dad stayed in the same house outside Milwaukee after Mom died, until he moved to an assisted living facility, married his second wife who lived there too, then to the nursing home where he outlived his second wife. At 86, he still enjoys Saturday breakfast at Denny's with my brother, who bought his house and made it home for him and his wife. My husband has adopted Wisconsin as home because 1) deer season is a sacred holiday 2)you can fish in the winter as well as the summer 3)beer bratwurst and cheese. Home is still the same house we bought when we moved here, a little the worse for the wear, but the knicks and scratches give it character. The pets buried under the pine trees give it continuity.

"Google the sad end in summary of Garland's story and you learn that she was just 47, full of sleeping pills, and that "everybody loved her" ... everybody but Frances Gumm, apparently."

"Everyone wanted to be Cary Grant. Even I wanted to be Cary Grant." - Cary Grant

Say what you will about the superior pace of life here in the Midwest, but one thing is certain: Frances Gumm is the sort of name which cries out for its owner to become famous and have it changed.

Where am I from? "36 Silverdale Road, Earley, Reading, Berkshire", in the UK. It's always a good idea to teach toddlers their address, even if it takes up valuable neurones when they're 50.

Why did I leave? With my parents, because we went where the work was. My father's whole department at Reading University was shut down, so after a few years in another part of Berkshire, we emigrated to Australia in 1968.

I visited the house where I was born about 15 years ago. You know the song "Tar and Cement"? You can never go back, the Past is another country. The stream which we so carefully rehabilitated from a stinking muddy mess into a cool, clear brook, filled with sticklebacks and tadpoles - now concreted over as a storm water drain. The grassy fields which I looked over from my bedroom window, viewing the Fox Hunt as they galloped through the morning mists, now a medium-density warren of 3-storey townhouses, domiciles for some 200,000 people.

And now I live in a country where I can take my son (6 in July) to see the Kangaroos hopping up the mountains at dusk, and if we're very careful, even glimpse a Platypus in the nearby river.

We're going fishing as soon as winter's over. I want to do for him what my Daddy did for me, and more. That's the way it works, No?

I'm originally from Scranton PA, we moved when I was six years old. I had childhood rheumatoid arthritis and the doctors told my parent to take me someplace warmer(lucky me).

My parent took a an exploratory trip across the country in 67 to check out California. As the story is told, my mother had a childhood friend who had moved there. the information she had was that she had moved to Fresno and lived on Stockton Street. In the end the friend lived in Stockton on Fresno Street.

My parents feel in love with Fresno and we moved there. Through the late 60's and 70's it was smaller town(most every place in California can say the same), and I had a relatively good time growing up there through the first year of high school.

During that first year my family moved to Southern California, and I've eventually found my way to the burbs in the Bay Area.

Like a lot of people my family entertains thoughts of somewhere slower, and cheaper, but we still enjoy it enough to stay for the time being.

Mary Indiana Mary Indiana Mary Indiana...
(With apologies to Meredith Wilson)

Mom was from Wayzata,a 4th or 5th generation
Minnesotan,but she met my dear Dad and came to
the Hoosier State. I was born here,went to college
here and intend to stay here..I love this place.
I like to travel and do so as much as possible,
but I am always glad to hear the pilot say "..and
if Indianapolis is your home,welcome back!"

Still,my siblings and I have an affinity for MN
and hang onto those odd bits of slang we learned
and that are EXCLUSIVE to Minnesotans.

I was born In San Francisco (which I must admit looks cool on my Passport, as if I had anything to do with it).

I was raised on the Peninsula. It was a very nice place back in the 60s and 70s, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I fell in love with the Rockies and a girl, and we decided to get married and live in Montana. It was actually quite wonderful for a while, even at 30 below, but after a few years we discovered it was little more than poverty with a view. We determined that something called a "job with a future" would be a nice thing to acquire.

We returned to the Bay Area and discovered that its cost of living had jumped a bit in the years we were gone. So we ended up in Sacramento, another pleasant burg with acceptable home prices. We kept thinking about moving back to the Bay Area, but each year its cost of living got bigger and bigger and the idea of moving back became utterly remote, if not impossible.

The statement "you can't go home again" was truly written for former denizens of the Bay Area. When the nice house you grew up in, purchased by your parents in the late 50s for around 18K, would now fetch somewhere to the north of one point five mill, that saying isn't some sweet metaphysical assessment of time and change. It's the remarks of a cold-hearted accountant giving you a nasty reality check.

We now live in the Denver area. Nice place. Good Jobs. Mountains nearby. Great schools, and our kids are very happy. The Bay Area? Not even a pipe dream any more.

I was born in Lakewood, Ohio (suburb of Cleveland). After three months (one of which was in an incubator; I was a month preemie), I left because my dad got transferred (and because allowing infants to live alone would be a bad, bad idea). We moved about twelve times before I was five years old (Dad was on the traveling auditing staff for Shell, so I'm an oil brat, I suppose), ending up in Texas when Shell moved its head offices there. I left the Houston area to go to college near Dallas (the wonderful music program at the University of North Texas) and have been in the Metroplex (a.k.a. the other place in the country with I-35E and 35W) ever since.

Incidentally, I also share a birthday today (technically yesterday now) with Ms. Gumm/Garland (as well as Prince Philip, Brazilian bossa nova singer João Gilberto and ice skater Tara Lipinski); that explains the lateness of this post--had to go out and celebrate a bit.

Oh, and aslancat, if you want to disassociate Waco from David Koresh (who once went to the high school in the town where I lived now, flunking a Bible class in the process), you can always tout it as the home of Dr Pepper, the national drink of Texas.

Nice to see Motley in print. The old hometown doesn't get much press.

Greywar at JoeUser

Greywar at Buzz.mn

Laborare Est Orare

A little chunk of California college town transplanted to an isolated plateau in the wilds of northern New Mexico.

I left after graduating from high school, in order to attend college and see the world. Having seen the world, and not been impressed, I'm back.

Hi James - great things you're doing here!!! Thanks! Anyway, I am a native Minnesotan, but I moved to southern CA because of my husband's job. I got divorced and my kids liked MN better, so they both attended college in the Midwest and ended up staying there. I eventually moved back here and can honestly say I don't miss the "plastic-ness" of CA (I DO miss the weather)! I have no desire to move anywhere else! Minnesota is...just Minnesota!!! You betcha! Land of the hotdishes and green jello!

I'm a fifth-generation Kansan, born in Wichita in 1959 to a teacher mother and a geologist father, whose job subsequently took us to Lynchburg, VA, Grants, NM, Golden, CO, and Bismarck, ND. I've also lived in Sioux Falls, SD, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, and Fargo, ND (that's where I was when I interviewed James, a Local Boy Made Good, many, many years ago for The Forum). Then I got married and ended up here (and subsequently divorced and remarried to a true Minnesotan). I consider myself a Minnesotan now too: I can find my way around downtown St. Paul, I go to the State Fair at least twice every summer, I have season tickets to the Renaissance Festival and my son was born in Minnesota. Do I qualify?

Well, I was born in Charlotte, NC. When I was 1 we moved to Jacksonville, FL. When I was 2, we moved to Northern VA, where I remain to this day (though I've moved around a little within the area).

Coincidentally, I flew over Jasperville yesterday, as I was in the Green Bay, WI area for a wedding, and I had to fly to Minneapolis to get a flight back to D.C.

I waved, though you likely didn't see me.

"We are the Hokies. We will Prevail... We are Virginia Tech!" -Nikki Giovanni, April 17, 2007.

Small world, eh? I'm surprised to see how many people from Los Alamos happen to be here. Nice little town when it's not on fire. Just a little too middle-of-nowhere for my liking.

I'm a Denver native. Mom was from Otter Tail County MN, but got to Denver in the 50s. I came along in 63. We'd go up to MN every summer for a week or two or three until I was out of college. I was a blond Leonard Zelig up there, y'know. Oh ya.

I bounced between southern California and Denver through the 80s and 90s. My Californication is over.

A few years back we had a chance to move to Alexandria, not too far from Mom's folks. My wife - a real New Yorker - was horrified by the isolation. I was afraid of the mosquitos and the muggy summers. 'Cause that's what those skyways in the cities are for, right, staying away from mosquitos and the sweaty muggy summers?

Technically I was born in Bakersfield, CA but I was raised in a small farming community near there named Wasco. Some of my childhood friends were Okies (no, really they were from Oklahoma and only came out in the summer to pick the crops). If you have ever been to either Bakersfield, or for some strange reason Wasco you would not ask why did you leave and do you ever go back.

Born in Mpls., lived on 11th Ave. as an infant, James Ave. in Richfield as a pre-schooler/kindergartner, moved to Minnehaha Ct. in Mtka. right before 1st grade.
My mom still lives there and we gather for holidays and get-togethers. My mom's emotional warmth and kindness are the epitome of what home connotes and I'm so blessed to still have her. For 4 years I lived in Boston, MA while attending college but quite honestly I never felt 'at home' there. My dorm was right on Massachusetts Avenue in Backbay, Boston. City-living in a converted hotel where cockroaches sometimes joined the party.... My group of friends became my family and our church families hosted us in their homes in Redding or Woburn, Mass. My roommate would invite me out to her parent's home in Westboro (an hour west of Boston) on occasion. That was a treat but still not home. Now, after many moves through the married years(St. Louis Park, Plymouth, Eden Prairie,& Carver), I live in a lovely home in Victoria. Our daughters have a few short years left before they head to college. And I'm still learning what it is to create the surroundings and emotional climate called 'HOME'. The most important element for our family is our faith since in reality, we're just passing through to our eternal home. May we all fix our hearts on the unseen and make heaven our ultimate goal. In my Father's house there are many mansions........

I was born in Montreal and spent my formative years (ie. till the age of 8) in the poor east end neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. I also lived for a couple of years in my mom's home village in the Eastern Townships, Quebec (where many people, including the grocery owner, were relatives) before moving again into Montreal's suburbs. A couple of years ago, I moved back to the east end of Montreal, although a better area than my childhood street (but still just a short bike ride away from it).

So, unlike most people, before I was even an adult, I experienced all three types of town life: the big city, the small suburban town, and the countryside village. I also noted that I'm more streetwise than my friends whose life started and probably will end in the suburbs.