Look Homeward, Angel.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:42 am

what is a hometown?

where do you come from?

why is it different than anywhere on earth?

and why do you love it?

and hate it.

I come from Rochester, New York....A Middle sized city of 1 million people, located on the shores of Lake Ontario.

The people here eat coal and shit Diamonds.

Busting someone's nuts means "I Love You".

and the Men aren't allowed to cry in public, ever.

my town is dying, like so many others across the country, the sickness i'm afraid, is terminal.

i know everyone, but i'm a stranger, i've escaped....

i feel as if i've abandoned a lover of many years, and the guilt is overwhelming.

I can't go home, again.

Post by **Sham** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 4:53 am

Simon, I had the pleasure of traveling back to my boyhood home for a visit down memory lane. I found an old neighbor who was still there, and she was friendly with the people who now own my family's tiny three bedroom ranch house, and she got me a VIP tour. This house was one of dozens of little pink houses built back in the 50s, but it was our little home. The wall paper in the kitchen was peeling back and it exposed the hideous paper my mother had put on the walls. I had to run my fingers over that wall paper as an amazing connection to my childhood. When I saw a few of the ugly switch plates remained, I felt like I discovered the Rosetta Stone.

I am not sure if it's the house that I was so fond of, or if it was the connection to the past and a perceived better time. Remember how we were told that once we got out of high school, we would realize that it was the best times of our life. We were too smart for that and we knew that was all bullshit. All these years later, we can now look back and wish that little place in time could have lasted forever.

We age, places evolve and times change. I'm sure when the time is right, my boyhood home will be razed and a new McMansion will be put in its place, and the little kids that call that home will have the same fond feelings for their house, and will not give any thought to the dumpy, tiny house that was knocked down to build it.

You're right Simon, you can't go home. But as long as you keep things in perspective, it will all work out.

Zhust · Post by **Zhust** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 5:51 am

Simon of the Playa wrote:my town is dying, like so many others across the country, the sickness i'm afraid, is terminal.

Death is change. The penultimate example is Black Rock City.

Post by **AntiM** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 6:00 am

I was raised in the Navy, I have no hometown, rather, a series of memories of Navy housing. I googled one old address, it is a vacant lot, grass covered and still on a base, the roads still cutting out empty courtyards and cul de sacs. The little bungalow on Coronado still stands, I was five when we lived there. It now is worth a million or two and someone put a second story on it. I could still see the sunroom which was always littered with my toys. What happened to my giant octopus? My riding horse on springs?

Dad's house here in Ogden is the closest thing I have to a childhood home, I moved into it around age 15, and out of it at 18. The connection is nebulous, although I've lived down the block for the past ten years. I live in Utah, but I am a Californian. An aging CG who is most closely attached to Project Artaud, where I've long been forgotten. Even the Naval hospital in Oakland where I was born is a parking lot.

No wonder I have a deep connection to the few material things I've hung onto for years. And people. Always the people.

weirdscience · Post by **weirdscience** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 7:24 am

wellington florida ... thats all i gotta say

Elorrum · Post by **Elorrum** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 7:50 am

I live in the town I grew up in, and yet it doesn't even feel like that to me. If I think of it, maybe every 5 yrs? I can drive through my old neighborhood, and see the house I spent the first 18 yrs. of my life in. It doesn't look like my old neighborhood though. I like the fact that the trees are HUGE now, from a desolate tract suburb, to something rather green and shady. The little elm tree (Elorrum hint) my Dad planted is wonderful after nearly 50 yrs. I lived away for 16 yrs, and then came back. I adapted to it like a new city, but I knew all the streets already. I never see anybody I grew up with or know. I'm not sure they are here or not. I can go to the same grocery store every day, and never see anyone I know. There's a Safeway, there's a Longs drug, first thrifty, now CVC, every quarter mile or so, and they are all the same as well, how does anyone know where they are?

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:03 am

as Jayce will confirm, since he lives in Rochester too, we may have a total of a mlllion people (including the burbs) but we are still a provincial small town.

everyone knows everybody, and its only 2 degrees of separation to find out you've shared spit with someone.

we are an extraordinarily wealthy trailer park. Everybody is fucking everybody's cousin.

you cannot fart without someone critiquing the color of the hashmark, and gossip is a professional sport.

and yet, i KNOW these streets, i know the skyline as well as i know the mountain sillouette that runs 360 degrees around black rock. The air, the tap water, the shitty weather and the smells that belch from factories soon to close.

i am watching my father die from cancer as well, and it is just too much.

seemingly the two deaths are coinciding, or maybe its just my point of view,
but every memory screams to be heard, and i am being bombarded by the cacophony of my past, so much so that the present and the future cant be listened to.

i love Rochester. I love my Father, and it is excrutiating to see them both decay before my very eyes.

i cant be here, i cant not be.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:20 am

it's funny, but Black Rock City is just as much my Hometown as any other place i've been.

i miss it terribly.

i miss you terribly.

rites of passage are never "easy".

Sail Man · Post by **Sail Man** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 9:51 am

Simon of the Playa wrote:it's funny, but Black Rock City is just as much my Hometown as any other place i've been.

i miss it terribly.

i miss you terribly.

rites of passage are never "easy".

No, they are not. I've seen so much death in my job. But rarely the entire process. Just the end result. In that I consider myself lucky.

You miss us, as I miss everybody as well. But, we are here with you. And I as well miss BRC for the chance to see and be with friends, often seen but once a year. I lament that is but once a year. But looking forward to it gives me happiness. And kindles within me a desire to make the pilgrimage out west more often, not just for the burn, but for the dear friends.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 9:53 am

Grew up in Berkeley, still live here. I see it becoming more and more yuppified. The neighborhood hardware store has died, but we now have a chain store where you can spend $200 on a pair of yoga pants.
The Berkeley where I grew up was more egalitarian. We were less obsessed with money and class, than with brains and talents. I miss that. It wasn't perfect, but it was a less horrible lie than the current one.
What has happened to Berkeley is less dreadful than what has happened to Rochester. My mother grew up in the Polish section of Buffalo. She doesn't go back, but I know that city is dieing, too. I have a friend from somewhere around Rochester. You can find footage on youtube of his now abandoned high school. I love those abandoned towns pictures and footage, that Ukranian town outside Chernobyl. The train station in Detroit. I have a fondness for decay. However, it's safe to say I will never go into one of those abandoned buildings exploring.

goathead · Post by **goathead** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 10:15 am

What would you do if it was one of your Daughters, instead of your Dad?

Glad my Step Dad went the way he did, in my Mom's arms telling him she loved him.

Would rather deal with the insanity of death, then with the guilt of not doing a thing.

Risky · Post by **Risky** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:06 am

The Best Coast does look really good on you.

Post by **Sham** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:21 am

Risky wrote:The Best Coast does look really good on you.

Did you mean EAST COAST Risky?

Simon, it's so hard to watch a loved one get old and sick. These people were the constant solid rocks of our lives, and now they are getting frail--with that hollow look in their eyes. When an illness is terminal, it gives you a dreadful slow motion fade of your loved ones life. I watched this with my own father, and I know that this experience can be excruciating. This really played tricks on my head, and I wondered about life in general. I can see by your posts, that you are dealing with the same things.

Be there for your father and you will have no regrets. I know he is probably more worried about you and the rest of the family through this ordeal. We are all with you on this, and many have dealt with it. It gets better and the sun really does shine again.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:52 am

i like how this thread is developing.

it is much more than i ever thought it would be when i drunkenly sat at the keyboard and recklessly typed my feelings.

But this is about Your Home Town, and what it means to you.

thank you for all of your advice, care, and random e-hugs. I needed it.

Now, lets talk about Home, wherever that may be or mean.

fishy, for you, the beautiful and abandoned Art Deco Masterpiece that is / was the Buffalo Train Station, circa 1929.

Dr Jet Sinister · Post by **Dr Jet Sinister** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:09 pm

My father passed about 18 months ago. The time I spent with him was important to both of us. Be there for him and let the outside go.

We romanticize our childhood home, but it's all inside. Perhaps the reason we cannot go home again is because we shouldn't.

Love to you during this difficult time.

Sail Man · Post by **Sail Man** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:23 pm

I grew up in Traverse City Michigan. Since I left for the military some 30+ years ago

it has slowly changed to look and remind me of one of the burbs down here in the Detroit metro area. Businesses come, and they go. And there has been continual development slowly changing the face of the city, more so downtown.

The peninsula you see that divides the bays is where I lived, approx 1/4 the way out on the west (left) side, on the water. It was a most awesome place to grow up and we participated in many outdoor activities. The peninsula back then was the heart of the cherry growing industry, hence our Cherry Festival, but has since given ground to more and more vineyards.

I spent many hrs sailing the west bay in both big and small boats.

God I miss it.

Isotopia · Post by **Isotopia** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:33 pm

You can't really go home I've heard.

You can go through the actions and the pretense but in the end it really isn't home. At least I can't lay claim to knowing one individual in my life where that wasn't the case.

I think what you can do though is to cultivate a sense of place. Just where (or what) that place is a pact between the head and the heart.

If this sounds like a nebulous response it isn't meant to be. There are a good number of writers out there who give voice to the idea. Among them:

Barry Lopez
Gretel Ehrlich
Aldo Leopold
Dayton Duncan
John Muir...

Give one a read and i think you might get an idea of where I'm coming from. Ehrlich or Lopez are great places to start.

BTW, my friend Pat Conroy has the rights to write the screenplay of Look Homeward, Angel should they ever make it into a movie.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:36 pm

When I saw the title of this thread I thought...Am I gonna die or something?

Worcester. Worcester is in central Massachusetts. It is the home to many fine colleges and universities...Holy Cross, Assumption, Worcester Tech, Clark (Sigmund Freud lectured at Clark) to name a few. Worcester. I used to think it was the arm pit of Mass until I visited it again this summer after 37 years...wowza. I found the northern part of it just strangely beautiful. I walked around my old campus of Holy Cross College. I felt like I was in a time machine. Clara Barton used to take care of wounded Civil War soldiers in Fenwick Hall. The place was built by Jesuits in 1843 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_the_Holy_Cross

Worcester. My grandpa had a very popular bar there called "The Gay Fair Cafe" right- it was different in those days dudes. It's gone now. Used to see a lot of action from the USS steel workers after shifts during and around the time of the war. My Mom tested M1 gun parts at USS Steel. Worcetser, actually the hill behind Holy Cross, is where the very first rocket was launched- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard

As odd as it may seem, the KKK had one of their biggest rallies ever in Worcester Mass. There was fighting and rioting around that meeting, because I guess of Worcester's very large Catholic population.

As a boy I used to hand out at the Higgins Armory. What a cool place for a kid. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/12326

Worcester- I used to hate it and love it. It's burned in my imagination forever. Oh, as a kid I started a large grass fire there once....was able to put it out though. Scared the shit out of me. Pre-burner shades....

Love
cowboyangel

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:44 pm

yes....i absolutely like this thread.

keep them coming, when people talk about their "Hometown" a change comes over them, whether through nostalgia or loss or Joyful Memories or all of the above, it is what helped formed us into who we are.

i can only imagine that if BRC ever becomes a Permanent City, what will the Children Born to It will say about It, when they "Grow up"?

Dr Jet Sinister · Post by **Dr Jet Sinister** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:55 pm

Simon of the Playa wrote:i can only imagine that if BRC ever becomes a Permanent City, what will the Children Born to It will say about It, when they "Grow up"?

"Dust and Noise"

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 1:50 pm

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Dr Jet Sinister · Post by **Dr Jet Sinister** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 1:54 pm

[youtube][/youtube]

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 3:29 pm

Nail on the head.

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 4:39 pm

Thank you, Simon.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 9:30 pm

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 9:43 pm

After a lot of reminiscing with the kids, I noticed a "theme". The best of times seemed connected to the "least of responsibility". There were plenty of times when all they had to do was shove food in their faces and put on clothes.
We'd go to the Date Festival, the hot springs and the dunes. As they grew out of their teens, the responsibility came down like a ton of bricks. They reminisce about all the days riding bikes at the beach,,, horses in the hills or ATCs in the dunes.
Summertime memories are often the best because they involve the least of responsibility. Warm afternoons at the lake. Just snooze, swim and eat.

The temptations song, Cloud 9, talks about "no responsibility"
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/ ... 2F002F8048

I can go back to the old hometown and I can climb the same trees. The stress of responsibility is still with me. Burning Man is so engaging that one can put stress off to one side for a while. Stress piles up and makes us crazy. Even a few minutes of escape can be great;

We can go back to the old locale but, it's hard to unload the stress.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 10:11 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Patch

K-mom · Post by **K-mom** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 11:22 pm

Toronto, across the lake from you Simon yet a different country.

It's a city of cold love, and thus I manage to be happy to have left and still find reasons to adore it every time I return.

Not a bad place to grow up!

Post by **Eric** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:18 am

my "hometown", as much as I have one, was Scottsdale Arizona in the 70's- kids on bikes, Halloween in the neighborhood, parents & kids all knowing each other, friendships that lasted decades if not longer....

Dust and dust. Where I grew up is now the "declasse" neighborhood, the civil sevices moved north, the schools I went to are condos or homes, the people I knew are dispersed to the winds.

My Hometown is where I have chosen to make my life, our lives, where I have put down roots and built friendships and relationships. My hometown isn't where I grew up, but where I grow. I started in Scottsdale, I blossomed in SF.

Post by **Sham** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:52 am

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=2+a ... 3,,0,-1.32

There must be a better way to post a link to Google images, but I don't know it. This is my little green house in my home town of Boston. Imagine that every 5 years or so, I go back and stop to look at this place. They must think I am casing the house to break in.

There are all different ways to look back on your hometown, but for some people who never leave, there is no sadness or nostgia--this is simply where they live now. For some, they continue to live in the family home, and work in a family business. While you dont feel the loss of your hometown roots, since you are there to watch it evolve, you may not be growing yourself.

I guess the word of the day here is PERSPECTIVE. If Eric never left Scottsdale, he would not look back with the warm feel he now has. If he had stayed there, he would just be calling it home and never would have made his mark on the world. (sorry Eric, but you were the last post here)

Sometimes you get to talk to old timers living in a small town, and they proudly tell you, "I lived here all my life--5th generation in the same house"! Which is worse, moving out and on, or never leaving your hometown?

Look Homeward, Angel.

Look Homeward, Angel.

Re: Look Homeward, Angel.

Re: Look Homeward, Angel.

Re: Look Homeward, Angel.

from whence i came and to where i shall return.

i went to elementary school with his great grand daughter.

the fearless leaper.