Thread: Where is home?

Just wanted to get an idea of where the folks who post on this forum live. I find the notion of 'home' to be a big part of a writer's identity. of course, some people we already know thanks to the 'location' detail 'neath the avatar. but i'm interested in what the place you live is actually like. is it a small town or big city? is your climate temperate, rainy, tropical, coastal, hot or none of the above (in which case you probably live in britain)? how long have you lived there? do you ever want to leave and, if so, where would you like to live?

i'll start: i was born in london, england. i have dual british-american citizenship, but was raised mostly in europe until my twenties. as far as nationality goes, i consider myself to be 'british by mind but american by heart'. sort of a mixed soul. i have lived in the U.S for a few years, in a small town in the american midwest, which is my my wife's home-town. the town is a few miles north-east of columbus in the middle of the buckeye state (ohio). new york is about eight hours' driveto the east through pennsylvania, chicago about the same to the west, via indiana state. above ohio is canada (across lake eerie) and michigan. my town is named Westerville (Westerville, Ohio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), famous for banning alcohol, being the hometown of benjamin hanby, who wrote the christmas carol 'up on the housetop', and really nothing much else. it's a pretty dull place by most people's standards. in the summer it gets pretty hot, easily in the 80's or 90's (farenheit). in the winter the mercury rarely gets more than ten notches over freezing. surrounding the town are fields, farms and woodland. politically, we lean republican, with most liberals living in and around columbus. most people who live here have never left america, and many have never left ohio. i like it here, but sometimes i think i'd like to move. mainly just because of the cold, and because i don't like not being able to walk like i could in europe.


your turn!

Considering that you have blood spatter all over your avatar, I'm not really sure I want to tell you where I live...

Why cannot one walk in America?

Manchester, England. Famous for counterfeit designer clothing, crime, unemployment and the philistinism of it's occupants.

Grew up (but technically wasn't born) in a place nicknamed Moccasin City, where they didn't finish building the wire fence around it. Town is most famous for its exports of unskilled unemployed, along with druggie murders and the killing of toddlers.
Now promoted to a dump who's residents pretend they're not obese shoeless rag-wearers who desperately need to learn that soap isn't for decoration.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Why cannot one walk in America?

it's just not safe to. no exaggeration either. i'm fortunate in that i can just about stumble to a supermarket, but for a lot of people here you just can't walk anywhere, at least nowhere further than your own neighborhood and literally everybody drives. it's not just laziness either, or even crime, it's to do with distance and a lack of general infrastructure for pedestrians. also it's illegal to walk down freeways and major highways.

Originally Posted by philistine

Manchester, England. Famous for counterfeit designer clothing, crime, unemployment and the philistinism of it's occupants.

and morrissey.

Originally Posted by Dreamworx95

Considering that you have blood spatter all over your avatar, I'm not really sure I want to tell you where I live...

considering that in your avatar you appear to be quite bloodless, i'd say you're quite safe. perhaps

My on-site location was created during the big flood 12 months ago, when my urgent surgery had to be re-scheduled because there were miles of water between me and the hospital. Maybe it needs updating.

“Small town” and “big city” are relative terms. I used to be in contact with a girl in North Carolina who told me she lived in a small town. I live in a small town too. But it turned out her small town had a population of 18,000, whereas my small town has a population of less than 1000. I become stressed if two other drivers, as well as I, have some potential to arrive at the same intersection within five seconds of each other.

Our climate depends on which map you read. Some call us sub-tropical, some temperate. All I know is we can’t grow Brussels sprouts and the rabbits are becoming acclimatised.

The district experienced a five-year drought that ended just over a year ago. Today they have to let water out of the dams to prevent them overflowing.

Surfing is two hours away to the East. That’s two hours in a fast car. Otherwise there’s the Council pool, or the upper reaches of the Brisbane River. The pool does have its drawbacks, mostly to do with the water aerobics classes, led by one who I can only describe as a female reincarnation of former Nazi party member Herr Reichsmarshall Herman Göering.

I went bush, as we say, twenty years ago. Today, age has caught up, and medical reasons have been intermittently dragging me back to the big smoke, which is where all the medical specialists are located. I’ve begun to hate the travel involved, with a deep and abiding passion. The cure is to move back to the smoke. But I won’t be doing that. That cure is worse than all the illnesses put together. The peace and quiet out here is worth the other inconveniences. So I’m between a rock and a hard place.

The first four lines of the second verse of My Country, by Dorothea MacKellar, sum up our environment, and how I feel about it, quite nicely:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.

I am from Western Washington (Seattle Area). Rainy and green. I was raised on the East Coast in smaller towns and miss it.

Originally Posted by luckyscars

it's just not safe to. no exaggeration either. i'm fortunate in that i can just about stumble to a supermarket, but for a lot of people here you just can't walk anywhere, at least nowhere further than your own neighborhood and literally everybody drives. it's not just laziness either, or even crime, it's to do with distance and a lack of general infrastructure for pedestrians. also it's illegal to walk down freeways and major highways.

I wasn't thinking. Outside of the shopping centre, we also lack infrastructure for pedestrains but due to low traffic volume everyone who walks, walks on the streets. I wonder if that makes them streetwalkers?

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Why cannot one walk in America?

A) Anywhere & everywhere is too far, and B) People who walk must be "strange", God invented feet to operate the accelerator and brake pedals...

Originally Posted by luckyscars

and morrissey.

I was trying to forget Morrissey - If I wan't to be that depressed, I'll come out of retirement and go back to work.

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

I was trying to forget Morrissey - If I wan't to be that depressed, I'll come out of retirement and go back to work.

Ha. He lives here now, along with jonesy, and johnny rotten, and ozzie, his wife harriet...and all the bitches of beverly hills, which is another popular reality t.v. show... with ex-pat, and her husband with the rod stewart hair, and her friend, injected duck lips, whose dead husband beat her, and plastic tits, and what's her name, drunken mess....Oh, and uh, none of 'em walk either, unless the cameras are rolling...

It's a big place, typically a $100.00 a week on gas, unless you have to commute.

Originally Posted by philistine

Manchester, England. Famous for counterfeit designer clothing, crime, unemployment and the philistinism of it's occupants.

I find Manchester to be useful. It's the city I fly into from the US when I visit my friend who lives in Morecambe.


I live in New Orleans. I'm sure you can figure out what you need to know about this place.