Mar 3, 2011 / Topic Ideas

Describe the town where you grew up.

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  1. I grew up in a small town adjacent to what is now a large University. There were a lot of vacant lots around us and we played baseball and touchfootball in the street during the day. We would often ride our bicycles 4 or 5 miles to go exploring. There was very little automobile traffic. Downtown had a bookstore and two movie theaters. There was a five abd dime, a shoe store and a department store. Closer to our house there was a Creamery, and two grocery stores.Almost everyone rode their bikes or walked to school from the time they started first grade until they were old enough to drive. We moved there in 1947.

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  2. Kendall Park, New Jersey…typical suburban sprawl community started in the late 1950’s, with shopping, skating rink, restaurants at one end…and elementary and middle schools within walking distance. Acres of wooded areas (they were ‘forests’ to us kids) complete with hundreds of exciting bike trails, bumpy and created especially for kids and fun. Frozen ponds where Dad took me fishing…and ice skating, depending on the season. Creeks where we spent endless days just trying to catch, then squeal about, any creature we could find. Several parks, with slides, swings and sand boxes. Sidewalks, picket fences ~ Sounds pretty ideal, huh? It was my paradise, but even though I didn’t know it then, looking back makes me appreciate it.

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  5. A town is a lot larger than where I grew up. It was smaller than a village, I think. It was an unincorporated rural community in the Oregon wilderness. We had to drive about 30 minutes to get to the closest town and that place only had one stop light.

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  6. Olá a todos, eu nasci no Brasil na cidade de São Paulo em 1941. Quanta diferença com os tempos de hoje, nasci no bairro do Jabaquara aonde morei até os meus 14 anos de idade. Depois eu e minha famíla nos mudamos para o bairro de Vila Mariana, tive uma infãncia muito difícil, passei muita necessidade, éramos muito pobres os meus pais se separaram quando eu era muito pequena. A minha mãe lutou muito para criar os 3 filhos. Comecei a trabalhar aos 14 anos de idade como balconista, estudava e ainda ajudava nos serviços de casa. Aos 16 anos conheci o meu marido foi o unico namorado que tive, nos casamos quando tinha 17 anos e meio.
    A minha vida nunca foi fácil até hoje é uma luta, logo que casei engravidei e perdi o meu primeiro filho, sofri até. Depois de 2 meses engravidei novamente precisei ficar em repouso os 9 meses para não perder a criança.
    Nasceu a minha primeira filha, depois de 4 anos fiz o mesmo repouso e nasceu a segunda filha, eu amo a minha família, me dediquei a vida inteira a ela. Mas se pudesse voltar atráz gostaria de ter uma profissão e trabalhar para ganhar o meu dinheiro. Hoje sinto falta disso, ainda bem que me tornei escritora, e tenho o meu blog, no qual eu estou feliz, mas gostaria de publicar o meu segundo livro que é o meu sonho, que espero conseguir será?
    Beijos a todos Mina!

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  7. I will probably write late tonight about something that more excites me. This topic is just not my thing.

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  8. I grew up in a town called Bletchley which is part of a bigger town that wants to be a city called Milton Keynes in England.
    I’d have to say that its not my favourite place in the world although I spent the first 20 years of my life living there it kind of depressed me.
    Sure there were good times but also lots of big gangs and seeing as I never felt the urge to belong to any of them it made me a target instead.
    as a teenager I spent most of my free time in other parts of the city to avoid the gangs. However when I was there I would spend my time trying to avoid them, or running for it if I couldn’t and failing that there would be a good old fashioned kicking to look forward to.
    I have lost count of how many times I was ignored by the police and told there was nothing that could be done and the stress for my whole family was pretty awful. Don’t get me wrong I had mates and it wasn’t the worst place to live not even the worst place in the city.
    I think I just had a habit of getting on the wrong side of the wrong people and I paid for it in blood.
    It got better as we all got older and people found better things to do than hanging around on street corners.
    But to this day when I visit my mum or friends there it still leaves me slightly uneasy.
    But hey that’s life and things are better now and only looking up.

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  9. After 40 years I visited the town where I went to school. I lived there as an oppressed poor boy. But 40 years later I came back as a free man, doing what he likes to do: for example to play guitar…; the town still seemed to be dead, but I was awoke, learned to have expressions and feelings in the meantime …; I left 40 years ago poor. Came back rich – and went away very soon after the photo session – watch my slideshow at:

    ARNSBERG on my mind

    +

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  11. I grew up in an African town called Jinja home of the source of the Nile and white water rafting in Uganda, by then Jinja was refereed to as Uganda’s industrial city attributed to the big factories such as British American Tobacco, the Nile breweries, textile firm Nytil among others.
    The town streets here were built in an ancient Asian style of ‘duka’ well as the schools were locates in the surburbs near Source of the NIle River.
    We lived on one of the prominent streets however my siblings and I never went to school in this town, Our parents chose to take us to boarding catholic schools near the City(Namagunga for the girls and Namilyango for the boys) and I believe the background we got here has contributed highly to what Am today.
    My parents now live in our country home in Iganga- 30 kilometres from Jinja but they still own property in Jinja hence my visits there once in a while.

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  14. Just another WordPress.com weblog
    Where I grew up…
    Ok, I have been writing this blog for over a year now and looking through it I realise that readers don’t actually know much about me. So using the daily post 2o11 for inspiration I have decided to let you in on where I grew up.

    Firstly my name is not Scarlett; I started writing using this name at a younger age. It has kind of stuck with me now, and its a habit that I want to get out of desperately as the name seems to be a major part of all my writing. I don’t want this to hinder me at all so my name is Sarah-Jayne.

    I was born in a small town called Milton Keynes, in a particularly rough area called Netherfield. Going to the doctors recently, they seemed to think it sounded posh. I assure you it is not. We were recently voted the worst estate by the Citizen (our local newspaper) and I suppose we are although I have never had a particularly bad experience with the drunks on the bench by the shop.

    Growing up I admit I was bullied badly, I knew that I would be. I had a speech impediment and children aren’t very forgiving. Although I hated it, I always see the silver lining, and I formed an unbreakable bond with my brother that has stayed strong throughout all our life.

    I grew up with the strongest role models around, my dad left when I was younger, so my mum and aunt raised me. They did a fantastic job, not to brag, but I have a strong moral/ethical values. Whilst I think this is a good thing, my fiancée struggles that I only see issues in black and white- there is not normally any other way for me to see it.
    The thing that most ‘outsiders’ don’t see is the sense of community between us Netherfieldians (yeah I made that up). My next door neighbours on the left stopped our house being broken into and chased the morons down the street. When my brother was in a coma, we were receiving cards from everyone telling us how sorry they were.
    A lady who lives just up the road, Helen, is a best friend of the family. Spending most of the time at each others house when we’re bored, she is more like an auntie to me and when my real aunt passed away, she was invaluable to keeping our family together.

    So when I walk down the street, I pay more attention to the amazing nature I have surrounding my house and ignore the grafitti.

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  15. Tunbridge Wells is in the heart of Kent, said to be the Garden Of England. It is a normal medium size town, many of the people commute to London to work. It has a big piece of common land where children used to play on the High Rocks.Now it is restricted in case of accident and possible legalaction against the council.
    It has an area called The Pantilles where there are many quaint shops selling numerous quaint items.Also many antique shops.
    It used to have a cinema, where, as a child I went to see The Snow Queen , also there was a restaurant called Carpenters which sold the biggest and best fresh cream merigues

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  16. One of my earliest memories is of a painting, hanging on the wall in the hallway of South Street grade school in Piqua, Ohio. Native American men are sitting in a ring around a campfire. In the center, a man rises from the flames. The men exclaim, “Otaht-he-wagh-Pe-Qua,” (He has come out of the ashes). And from that time, that place was called Piqua.” (http://www.piquaoh.org/history.htm)

    The town where I grew up

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  17. Thanks for taking the time to post these as inspiration for us. Although this is the first one I’ve written, I read your suggestions every day and appreciate your efforts.

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  19. That’s hard. I grew up in several towns. One was a desert. The other was near the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and the other was just outside of Philadelphia, PA. I won’t describe them all, but I can say they I had a wonderful variety of places to live growing up!

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  20. Rural area in Massachusetts. Center of town with three tiny mom and pop stores. Fish hatchery, Plains and the white sands of the Lake Hitchcock Delta. A few small gas stations with soda machines outside selling glass bottles of Coke and Tab. Rich farmland, and woods, the Millers River running through the center of town and a bigger river, The Connecticut River, bounding it. Small elementary school. White picket fences in town and old cottages, ranch houses and a few singlewide trailers outside of town. Kids riding bicycles and horses. Quiet

    Now there is only one convenience store, no gas stations and lots more houses. The fields I rode horses in are small lots with houses. Houses everywhere. My childhood home’s land now holds three houses. I don’t like to look at it.

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  21. Early years in New York but raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina where I started school. Lived with my Grandmother. I am the oldest grandchild. My Mom and Dad took me to my Dad’s mother to live as it was the answer to babysitting issues. Fayetteville is a military town outside of Fort Bragg Army Base. I grew up in the South during days of segregation and Jim Crow. There were “white” water fountains and “colored” water fountains. African Americans could not sit at the counters at the Woolworth and Kress department stores. I was bussed to the junior high school, right past the white junior high that was up the block. BUT it was a wonderful life. My Grandmother’s house was blocks from the main street, Hay Street. Our church was the next block over from Hay Street. Everyone had fruit or nut trees on their property (pecans, pomegranates, apples, pears) and my Grandmother raised chickens, and had a vegetable garden. Supermarket was around the corner. My Grandmother was a seamstress and church secretary. I guess we were poor but there was always food on the table. She made some of my clothes and my parents and aunt sent the rest from New York so I always had clothes no one else had. The education was priceless. No comparison to New York schools back in the day. Would not change a thing.

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    1. It sounds like your grandmother really loved you. What a blessing that was to you. I have a family member who served in the military out of Fort Bragg for many years. I have been to Fayetteville several times to visit him.

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  23. Olá a todos, pelo que lí aqui, cada um carrega a sua cruz como costumamos dizer aqui no Brasil, umas mais pesadas outras nem tanto. Mas no fim é quaze tudo igual. Só sei que a vida não é fácil para quem é honesto.
    Todos temos problemas, assim é vida não é mesmo?
    Abraços a todos Mina!

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  24. Chislehurst (pronounced Chiselhurst) in Kent, England.
    It’s a small London suburb town, famous for 2 things: The Chislehurst Caves (used during the war by the Government) and The Golf Course – home to Napoleon III and his wife the Empress Eugenie. Also famous for murders on the Common.

    It’s a very smart London suburb which touches the poorer parts on most sides. Useful for ‘cleaning ladies’ people used to say. They can walk or ride to the many big houses. The road I lived in was a private gated road (huge, ornate wrought iron gates, closed on Sundays).

    My memories was of it ‘being out in the sticks’, of it being full of little shops where my mother queued for every little item. The grocers was called W H Cullen and I loved all the little polished wooden draws full of commodities. You never forgot anything – or you’d have to queue up all over again. Shopping took the whole morning.

    I also remember the village pond which often froze up to delight the children who skated – and learnt how dangerous that was. Several children fell through the ice and drowned. I have a fear of village ponds.

    I also have a fear of Commons. The Chislehurst Common was, for me, most famous for the murders that happened in there. I am terrified of large stretches of ‘common land’ where men lurk in the bushes and trees. These memories are hard to expunge.

    And yes, I do go back occasionally. It’s now full of boutiques, loads of trendy restaurants and, actually, it’s very pretty. I used freeze whilst waiting for the 227 bus (the only one that went to Chislehurst). I often gave up waiting and chose to walk the 5 miles home from school through the scary parts – so much did I hate waiting for busses that never came.

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  27. I was born and spent my first years in the Arctic way above the Arctic Circle at the top of Norway. What I remember the most are the extremes in seasons and the weather conditions. Arctic storms, low temperatures, bloodsucking mosquitos, pitch-dark winters, midnight sun… one natural phenomenon surpasses them all, and that’s the Northern Lights, the giant celestial light show.

    BBC has made an Absolutely Fabulous documentary called “Joanna Lumley in the Land of the Northern Lights.” In the post, I added some links well worth taking a look at.
    http://zolh2011.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/go-see-the-northern-lights/

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  28. Check out my post for today for information on the Weekly Photo Voting from published photos in the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge! 🙂

    Now voting on:

    Weekly Photo Voting! “Boundaries”
    Weekly Photo Voting! “Curiosity”

    http://wp.me/p1fqaT-QG

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  29. Imagine yourself sitting inside of an oven. The sweat would poor down your face, and you would feel the life being sucked out of your body. This was my childhood in St. George, UT– one of the hottest deserts in the USA. At least I think that it is one of the hottest. The long Summer days felt like endless scorchers with temperatures rising between 115 to 120 degrees F. What did you do during those days, you ask? Well, swimming was an option, but then there was always the possibility of snakes trying to cool down in the water with you. The slip-and-slide was fun, but barreling down into a nest of scorpions was rather interesting. Hiking was enjoyable if you didn’t get lost or run out of water. Despite the intense heat, I did always enjoy our red rock mountains and national parks that surrounded my home town.

    Nowhere else in the USA has such beautiful mountains and national parks. Snow Canyon National park is directly in front of my parent’s house where I grew up. It was always such an awesome view to wake up to each morning.

    I no longer live in St. George, and much has changed since I have left. I have many fond memories and friends and family that still remain, and I always know that I will be greeted with love when I go to visit.

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