I’ve never really had a hometown. It’s just the way things worked out for me. It’s not a complaint – it really had a lot to do with making me who I am – but being Hometown-less is not something that is talked about much.
On Friday night we visited with friends out on their land. A beautiful and perfect night sitting out by the first bonfire of the season. A bunch of good friends just sitting around on a perfect, cool fall night, chatting. We talked about being from somewhere else and what it was like to move to a new place and experience it.
The next day, the weather was perfect for fall as Danielle and I walked up Center Avenue towards the entertainment grounds that had been set up outside Shaw’s Marketplace and Fuzzy’s Tacos for the Welcome Home Celebration on Saturday night. We’re not from here, so we always feel a little funny taking part in all the Brownwood Hometown stuff. We’re starting to get over the awkward feelings. But for me, being Hometown-less, it’s a bit like watching a Hallmark movie about the city slicker who is forced into a small-town setting where he doesn’t quite fit in. I’m far from a city slicker, but I am Hometown-less and that is significant.
My father was in the military, and though we didn’t move as much as most career military families, we moved just enough that I was never established anywhere that felt like home. Until I graduated High School in Odessa, here is how it went…
Ages:
0-3 Lubbock, Texas
3-10 Dayton, Ohio
10-14 Maryland (DC area)
14-18 Odessa, Texas
After graduation I lived in Lubbock from age 18-23, the DFW area from 23-27, Lubbock again from 27-30, Smyer (outside Levelland, Texas) from 30-38. We lived on our land outside of Santa Anna from age 38 until I was around 55 or so.
Some people say, “Your hometown is where you went to High School,” but that’s not true. At least not for me. I only lived in Odessa for 4 years and I didn’t know anything about the town. I knew the people I hung out with, but the whole thing was just a blink of an eye. I never went to any town festivals, identified with any traditions, never walked around downtown like they do in the movies with a sparkler on a beautiful fall night.
When you grow up, everyone asks you “Where are you from?”
I’ve never had a good answer to that question. What does that mean? Hometown? If you’re talking about the Halcyon Days of childhood, memories of playground fun, screaming at the top of your lungs, playing Red Rover or Tag, kickball, sledding down hills in the snow in winter, Big Wheel races… those kinds of things, I think of our time in Ohio. Four beautiful, distinct seasons every year, green grass to run through barefoot, snowball fights. Idyllic childhood.
If you mean the place where you lived in your preteens and the first wispy scents of pre-teen freedom, like riding your bikes all day to faraway places, being gone all day with your friends, going to the store by yourself, building forts, little league, playing fall pickup football on a homemade field when it was starting to get cold and you could see your breath… that’s Maryland to me.
If you mean the beginnings of young adulthood, Jr. High sports, then High School competition. Driving a car. Holding hands and then kissing a girl, heart thumping in the dark and thinking “This is what love is.” Underage and sipping beers behind the TG&Y store. Awkward parties. Friday Night Lights. Teenage angst and insecurity. For me, all of that was Odessa, Texas.
I loved some things about all of these places, but none of them were a “hometown” to me. We moved too often, and I never got attached to a place in that way. Some people’s memories of their hometown are like a movie – from childhood to adulthood all in the same environs. Comfortable places, traditions, and nostalgia. My life has been more of a greatest hits medley, but there is no Hometown.
I never know what to say when people ask where I’m from. I’m from all of these places, but none are my “hometown.”
When Danielle and I got to the concert venue in front of Shaw’s and Fuzzy’s, we took a table up by the bandstand. The bands weren’t playing yet, and they were playing songs through the speakers and all of them were about “Hometown.” I was watching the McCranes (who operate Shaw’s and Fuzzy’s and who were hosting the event) run around, hard-working, trying to make everything just right. All the while the speakers were jamming the Hometown-themed tunes. The McCranes kind of embody “hometown” to me. Watching them is sometimes like being a visitor to a foreign land, watching the locals who are the very identity of a place and time.
Being Hometown-less, this can be a very striking thing, and hard to communicate. I envy those who have that, but I wouldn’t trade places with them either. Being a bit of an outsider has helped me be who I am, and maybe it has informed my writing a little bit. I’m always writing from the outside looking in. I don’t know.
Just thought I’d share.
Where is “Home” to you?
Y’all have a great week.
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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.
