casualcollector
Lifetime Member
In Search of "R" Serial Soligors
Posts: 619
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Post by casualcollector on Oct 11, 2007 19:49:23 GMT -5
I've lived in Florida nearly three years now. Family is near, I have a nice girlfriend and a good job but I still miss the verdant hills of Vermont. The air should be cool and crisp there now. The trees should be afire with red, orange and yellow, their blaze of glory before going dormant for the winter.
BUT... Florida does have it's attractions. Last night Liz and I were sitting on the deck of a beachside hotel. Waves were washing the beach. A live band was making a valiant attempt at jazz. The breeze was mild, people were dancing and chatting. Then, NASA lit up the sky for us with a satellite launch from KSC.
An experience you really can't find in Vermont this time of year!
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PeterW
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Posts: 3,804
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Post by PeterW on Oct 11, 2007 21:04:43 GMT -5
I once read somewhere that for most people there's a particular place where they feel at home. I don't think it's always got to do with where you were born, or where you grew up or anything nostalgic. It's just that somewhere seems to attract you. I think it's why you find so many ex-patriates in all sorts of places.
I was born and grew up in south London. My family were all Londoners, generations of them. Valerie and I lived in London for the first twelve years we were married, and we were very happy there. I worked in London for about 16 years after we moved down here. But much as I like London, and I'm only about 60 miles from it, I wouldn't want to go back and live there.
I've been to most parts of the UK, and I've also been fortunate that my work took me to most mainland European countries, west and east. Not just the big cities, I also got about in the small towns and the countryside, and saw many very attractive places.
Environments are much more localised in the UK, and in Europe generally, than in the vastness of the US and Canada. I've lived where I am now for the past 36 years and I don't think I'd want to live anywhere other than this rather small south-east corner of England called Kent. It's where I feel at home.
PeterW
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Post by Randy on Oct 11, 2007 21:15:54 GMT -5
I've always lived close to Lake Erie....and I have aquaphobia!
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Post by herron on Oct 11, 2007 22:30:17 GMT -5
I was born in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains, but I've lived in the Detroit area since I was a toddler. Right now, I live about 40 miles north of the city...although around here you never really get the sense you're out of a city. I don't consider the city home...I moved out this far almost 32 years ago...before the population growth had come this far...even though I worked all the way downtown. I liked it then, and didn't mind the commute (there is no mass transit here), but it's finally beginning to wear on me. I've been fortunate enough to have seen a lot of this world, but coming back to Michigan is home...even though this little corner of it isn't the quiet, peaceful, unpopulated place it used to be. Still, to my way of thinking, it beats the congestion of a city - any city - by so much I couldn't even quantify it. We're seriously thinking of moving to the west side of the state when I retire, and building a small place in the middle of 20 acres of woods. I almost get homesick thinking about it...and there isn't even a house there yet!
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Post by kiev4a on Oct 11, 2007 22:52:29 GMT -5
My Dad's family came from Kansas to Idaho in 1910. Prior to that they were in Iowa, Pennsylvania Rhode Island and originally in Massachusetts. Another branch got to Kansas via New York and Canada.
The family has been in Idaho longer than any other place. I've Lived within 50 miles of where I was born all but maybe 3 1/2 years of my 62. Even getting older I can't envision leaving for the winter. All three of our daughters and their families and all of our friends are here.
There's no place like home.
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Post by John Parry on Oct 12, 2007 6:05:08 GMT -5
I have a cure for it - sit under a tree...
No, sorry, that's seasickness!!
Regards - John
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Post by herron on Oct 12, 2007 8:07:33 GMT -5
I have a cure for it - sit under a tree... No, sorry, that's seasickness!! Regards - John John: I haven't seen too many trees on the ocean.........ah, I get it!
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Post by vintageslrs on Oct 12, 2007 8:12:59 GMT -5
Peter W.
You are 100% correct. I spent my first 50 years in New Jersey....most of it along the central shore.....and then I discover where I really needed to be...where I really comfortable and feel at home is in the mountains of New Hampshire...go figure! I think that is where I was meant to be born. Better late than never......at least I did get here! ;D
Bob
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Post by nikonbob on Oct 12, 2007 11:49:53 GMT -5
I was born and raised in Northwestern Ontario and will likely be buried here. It is sort of a love/hate relationship with the place. Every time I come home from a trip I realize that it is not so bad here after all. I guess you have to leave it to appreciate it.
Bob
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Post by GeneW on Oct 12, 2007 12:13:13 GMT -5
I don't know if anyone here can help me, but I heard a word on a radio show some 8 weeks ago or so -- a German word meaning, roughly, longing for or homesickness for a place you've never actually been. Unfortunately I forgot the word as soon as I heard it and would like to retrieve it. It's such an interesting perception.
My {insert German word} is for Paris. I've never been, but it's figured so prominently in my life -- studying French at university, reading history, reading the existentialist writers and philosophers, looking at iconic images of the Eiffel Tower and the little neighbourhoods, all the paintings of Paris scenes I've loved over the years, the photography of Atget and HCB, stories from friends who've lived there for a year or so... I could go on and on about the Paris of my mind and how I've often longed to be there.
Does this seem strange or has anyone else here experienced this?
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Post by herron on Oct 12, 2007 13:15:22 GMT -5
Gene: The literal German translation for longing is " sehnsucht." I'm not sure it's meant as the kind of longing you mention, but it is a word in a letter written by (I believe) one of my father-in-law's aunts, or great-aunts, during World War I. His ancestors lived in Germany and Hungary, and in the letter the woman was talking about her longing for her young son...who had been conscripted into the German army and was somewhere in the trenches! This woman actually struck out, walking, across the countryside to find her son...in the midst of all the unimaginable horror of war...because he had written to her about how cold and lonely and hungry he was, in such an awful situation...and how all he wanted to do is be home with her by the fire. She actually found him, bringing him a coat and a basket of bread and cheese! It's such a poignant letter, most of my wife's immediate family has a copy of it. Your own "sehnsucht," if that is indeed the meaning of the word, is normal, I think. I had always wanted to visit Italy...never really knew why...probably the stories of all the famous European artists and musicians who either originated from there, or created some of their renowned pieces there. Got a chance to do that when my kids bought us that cruise last year...and a little of it, particularly places I had read about, or were in some of those famous paintings I admire did feel like home. Not in the sense that "home" feels...but there was a warmth about it that was pleasant. You should go to Paris, Gene. What a neat present to yourself and your lovely bride a week there might be! It's only money...and the memories are forever. I've heard springtime there is magnificent!
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Post by doubs43 on Oct 12, 2007 14:20:07 GMT -5
I was born in Frederick County, MD, in the shadows of the Catoctin Mountains, the Eastern-most range of the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians. There, the piedmont area is some of the most gorgeous and fertile land in the world and farming flourished until recent years. It was peaceful and rural and I loved it. It'll always be home to me but I can't afford to live there any longer as the influx of people working in and around Washington DC have pushed prices to astronomical levels. The farms are disappearing as ugly houses take up more room and crowding is awful. The infrastructure is taxed to the limit now.
I really miss the mountains and four distinct seasons. Middle Georgia is not attractive but it's now been home for the past 20 years. If I had my way, I'd move to the mountains of Virginia or West Virginia but my wife doesn't want to move as she has too many friends and is comfortable here. So, I suffer in silence.
Walker
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Post by herron on Oct 12, 2007 14:23:22 GMT -5
All that good, red Georgia dirt should be photogenic, though.
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Post by ellacoya1 on Oct 12, 2007 14:24:01 GMT -5
I'm really glad Bob was meant to live in New Hampshire, because I sure as heck wasn't meant to live in New Jersey. It's a nice place to visit....just don't ask me to drive there I left New Hampshire for 10 years in my 20's...only went 1 state south...hated every minute I was there (It was less than 20 minutes from Boston and I was brought up rural. I spent another 10 years in the southern part of my state...which might as well belong to the state to the south of us with all the transplants and growth. I might not be living quite as far north now as I might like...but I see the hills and forests around here and feel content. I feel like I'm home I just should have stayed put in the first place.
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malkav
Lifetime Member
Posts: 132
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Post by malkav on Oct 30, 2007 0:18:06 GMT -5
Being homesick is not much of a problem for me. Being an ex-army brat, and having moved every 18 to 36 months for 18 years I have nowhere that I really would call "home". After my dad retired from the Army we lived in Texas for 13 years (not in the same house). Then they moved to SC, and about a year and a half later my wife, kids, and I moved to SC so that my parents could be near the kids as they grow up. I'd like to go back to TX were I have friends, but oh, well.
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