Going back home
I loved where I grew up, a small country town in Australia, surrounded by large farms, vineyards and wide open spaces. It was a simple place, no digital distractions, very quiet, and going out meant going outside to work or play rather than a fancy restaurant, nightclub or other such location. The town had a single main street lined with businesses owned by the people who worked in them, no one locked cars or houses and everyone knew everyone else. It was predictable, welcoming and wholesome. I miss that now, years later after leaving.
I miss the simplicity of life in that small town, dust hanging in the air as the combine harvesters cut rows into wheat fields, the lack of franchise-businesses and fast-food joints and the way people pitched in to help when help was needed. It was a good place, relaxed and community-spirited.
I go there from time to time still but it's not the same and I don't feel the same when there as I used to.
Sometimes I wonder if it's me that's changed but no, I'm the same country lad I always was. It's the town that's changed. More people, fast-food outlets and franchised chain-stores that caused the eventual closure of business that have been owned and operated by the same families for decades. It's faster, nosier, more congested and not as simple as it used to be.
Last week I was there to see a friend, someone I went to primary and high school with, who was back from Sydney to see her ailing mother. Before I went up to her mum's place to visit I pulled over in the main street to get a coffee, from one of those damned franchised coffee shops, and took a walk up and down the street as I drank it. I felt like a stranger, knew no one I saw, was greeted by no one and hardly recognised a single shop-front from the good old days. It made me sad.
My life has taken me far and wide and the things I've done...well, the boy I was back in that small town could never have conceived of such things.
I have travelled all over the world, built businesses, loved and lost, loved again, and have created what essentially is the sum and total of my life in the shape I wished it to take. But no matter where I've been and what I've done that place I grew up in, my home town and the home in which I lived my early years, will always be a special place to me, even though I feel like a stranger there.
I get nostalgic driving past familiar places, feel the tug of memories pulling at my mind but...going back home for good is something I can never do, it just doesn't feel right now and that home isn't the same one it once was.
"Home" was the people, the lifestyle and the simplicity of the life I had growing up, and that town could never be that now...'progress' has taken care of that.
I wanted to share some tracks that make me think of home. Below are three tracks that remind me of various aspects of my youth, the simplicity I enjoyed growing up and the thoughts I have now knowing the home I knew is gone forever.
Have you moved away from home and if so has it been a positive or negative thing for you? Do you miss your hometown and if you do, what aspects do you miss and why? Is going back to your home town possible and how does it make you feel when you do? If you're keen to comment on these things please go ahead, or comment generally on anything you wish including the music I have linked. I'll get back to you, I always respond.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default; tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind - galenkp
[All original and proudly AI free.]
The image in this post was taken by me.
I feel the same way as you about my home town. In fact they sound somewhat similar in nature. I left it when I was 18 and entered the military. Always swore I would never live there again. I returned to visit over time, but that was it. However, years passed, I matured, had a family. My mother was getting old and I missed the nostalgia and was ready to head back to my home town when I retired from the service. It was a big mistake, for most of the same reasons you mentioned regarding yours. Add to that ours had a bad drug issue with meth. We lived there for about 8 years then moved to where we are now about 2 hours away. We won't be going back but to visit for short periods. But like you, when I am there I have fond memories of certain locations.
Yep, that totally sucks, the meth thing. Terrible thing that is, it's an issue here too of course.
It's always depressing to go back to places we loved and to see such change, to me it is, and driving into my home town makes me a little angry too. I understand that things change, I'm not an idiot (usually) but it's difficult to deal with when it is something that once held so much value, a place of comfort and safety.
Hey, we always have the music....speaking of which...here is one for ya. Seeing I am a proud Hoosier native like Johnny boy, thought his song was appropriate.
I love me some Mellencamp bro! Great artist, and this is a great track!
Thought you would appreciate it.
I loved this one, a situation that has played out across my country for some time now...Banks and government selling million acre farms out to China. Fuckers.
It's a great song though right?
I love all of John Mellencamp's music. Yeah, that is based off what he witnessed taking place here in his home state of Indiana. Small fmaily farms are a thing of the past. They are few and far between. If they exist anymore it is usually because extended family has pooled resources together to make their farms larger so they can at least try to complete with large corporate ran farms. Yes, we have China buying up large tracts of farm land over here too. It is finally getting some attention.
Me too really, such a great artist.
My fucktard government leased (for $1) a tract of land in remote Western Australia to the Chinese...it's their land. What did they do with it? Built a fucken airfield for training purposes. Yeah, training purposes. Sure.
Its ridiculous. Chinese backed companies started buying up tracks of land around military installations over here. You can bet that finally got someone's fucking attention.
It's bonkers man...but one of the reasons I keep my skills sharp still. I'll be happy to bang away on the long gun when the time comes...until the truck-mounted PHL-81's drop 122mm rockets on my head and well...I'll not care after that.
Are our governments just plain stupid?
Mine seems to be sometimes. They are too busy with their petty infighting.
Yeah, greed...and all the while they're being undermined from without and will lose everything.
Hey
I am stuck on a few words in your post
"Loved and lost,loved again,"
Can you tell me what does this means?
Sorry as I possess a very curious nature..
I haven't moved from my hometown..
I am still there where I was born.
Really?
Loved someone, lost them, loved someone else.
Yup
I am out for a while because of study purposes but will return soon.
Can I know further how you lost them ? Was that a one-sided love?
And was it easy to forget them and love someone else?
No. I find your probing questions a little rude.
Oops
Sorry for that
Never mind, because I was curious as I am also experiencing many things like that in my life..
I will be careful next time.
You're asking a stranger (me) very personal questions which is unusual in my culture.
If you're curious, there's ways to open the line of communication for that other person to open up about something in their own way rather than asking directly. I made a comment in my post that had literally nothing much to do with my post, and you focused on that and hit me with probing questions which isn't really the done thing her in my country and ono Hive either I guess; I don't know about your country, but here, asking such questions of a stranger would be considering ill-mannered.
I already apologised for that.
Actually, it is my mistake, I hadn't hit you with plenty of irrelevant questions. Actually I am from Pakistan and people here are much free to ask from others.
I will be much careful to ask any irrelevant or off the topic questions from you. Yes this is hive and we should not try to push ourselves into someone's personal space.
I understand that, I read your comment. I was adding some more perspective for you considering that you seem to be curious.
Hmmm
This hmmm means ok.
The town where I live now has changed a lot over the years. I've traveled back east to see the two towns where I grew up there before we moved out west, and they are both at times nearly unrecognizable. Sure, a lot is the same, but a lot is decidedly not. The old playgrounds have been "upgraded" with plastic playsets. Where I remember 4 grocery stores in one small town, I think there is only one now, and it's a big chain.
I understand the unrecognizable comment as there are many places I knew that are that way now when compared to my memories. I think, with my own home town, it's the fact it's so recognisable overall because I know it so well, but has fundamentally changed so much so feels unrecognizable. I drive in and think...this isn't right. It's a very old town, founded in the 1830's, and pretty much all the old buildings remain, but...McDonalds and Subway, chain supermarket and retail stores' signage hang on them like some sort of grotesque joke that mocks those who remember it the way it was...all that change in thirty years or so.
American country music for an Aussie small town guy, hear the connection to type of place being similar.
Australian country music is the worst thing I've ever heard; I can't stand it.
Boere music here enough to lead to my devastation, we followed more British ballads or traditional mixed sound.
I'm not a huge fan of much Australian music at all to be honest, I did a post about it a while back. I guess, just because I was born and raised here, it doesn't mean I have to like everything about it.
Thank goodness we don't have to listen 🙉
Preferred many other local groups available.
Yes, i left my city at the age of early 18 and moved to a new city where I don't even knew the language but after working 5 years there, came back to my city where my heart is and i feel very peaceful here 💕
It's good to hear you were able to get back to your home town and that you feel comfortable there, I would not in my own home town as it has changed so much.
I never lived in my hometown untill I took the big decision of shifting back to our ancestors place. I made some ocassional visit every year, but since last 5 year I am completelly made it my base. With no main income source I faced little challenges but slowly adapting by limiting on things. The place is nice and surrounded by natural beauty, with helping community all around I feel safe and enjoying.
No one in my relatives were accepting that I am back to my hometown but now they also accepted me ....so far it's a good experince if the money factor kept aside
I think it's great that you've found acceptance back in your home town and feel comfortable there. Sure, it's a challenge from the income perspective but I think you're a smart guy and will have the ability to work with it to move that forward.
There are still challenges finding an oppurtunity in tribal belt is not an easy job unless and untill you are from government representative...but will find out what more in the store...first challenges of adapting has been done successfully accomplished ... now as dad left me..I have more spare time...hope to get on something sooner
It must be tough, however you seem like a determined person and one not inclined to give up, which leads me to believe things will happen for you. I think you deserve it too, so hopefully it happens soon.
It's really quite sad that it felt so alien to you, especially as it was such a huge part of your foundation years. I suppose the same could be said by me. I could never go home, it just wouldn't be the same so I've come to terms with it.
I was driving through an area that I drove through as a kid a few days back. It was a tiny little town with long open dusty roads between anything, only a few roads made up the town centre and there were farmlands strewn between. Now it's been so built up and most of those farmlands have been converted to apartment blocks (tiny ones) and shopping malls are all over. It's lost it's old school nuance and I didn't feel any nostalgia there, other than reflecting of the memories as a child.
Change is inevitable of course, but we don't have to like it. I think it's sad to see those family businesses taken over (pushed out) and the multi-nationals move in, it seems like the ultimate insult to those who built that town all those years ago and those who care-took it over the years.
I agree completely. The worst part is that so many of the people in those situations were probably forced to sell by bullying lawyers and their ilk. I'm so sorry that you were saddened by it, but home is where you make it and you have spoken of the home you have now, your garden, the fact that the conservation park is just a stone's throw away. It seems that even if you feel you lost your boy-hood home, you've made an epic one now.
My home is comfortable, no doubt at all; it has what I need and more, is well-situated and quite new, I make a good home here it's true.
I understand the feeling of not being able to recognize your home because things have changed there. But it is a beautiful thing the memory that place has left in our hearts is something so pure and precious.
I have been away from home and I do miss going to the sea. I know things would have changed there but the memories it has left with me can never change.
Memory certainly is a wondrous thing, I'm glad I have one.
Do you think you'll even go back to live in your home town?
Haha, I'd rather not. Memories are a strong part of us and some left are not too good.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
I also feel nostalgic when we visit my mother's hometown in the province. However, unlike in your place, it doesn't have much change brought about by commercial establishments or infrastructure. What I missed was more of the feeling, the ambiance, the neighbors that migrated, the folks that have gone, the smell of the sea, and the area itself. When it's time to go back to the city, while on travel and seeing the scenic view on our way home, makes me shed tears.
Those things you mention, folks, the sea, ambiance, and so on is exactly what I mean, although my home town wasn't beside the sea. It's those things I miss...things which have been taken away by progress.
We really can't control change, we just have to live with it.
That's home, not the place but the people, the customs, the greetings they gave us... that's it.
I moved, yes, only once, from Argentina, province of Buenos Aires, to Malaga. The change was very positive, in terms of the tranquillity, the people, the beautiful energy, the opportunities, the learning.... much positive, there I was stagnating.
I don't miss my city, but I do miss my friendships, that was my home. At first I missed my home, but that time has passed. The people are the ones I miss, but I have communication every day. I even improve my communication.
At some point I will return, it will be strange because everything has changed... too much, the chaos has become deep, dark and sad. .... I have no idea what I am going to find, I have to go maybe in a few years to solve paperwork problems.
All three songs are beautiful and I didn't know any of them, their lyrics are from home of longing, warmth and affection. They are beautiful. Thank you for sharing them, thank you very much Galen.✨
I get that...cities are nice to visit, but I don't like living in them. (That's where the work is though I guess right? )
I think you'll see a dramatic change when you travel back, like me with my home town. I've seen mine change first-hand over the years and it seems every time I go through it's a little further away from what I remember. I have my memories though, and that's something.
These songs always remind me of my home town, there's others too. I guess it's nice to hear them and be carried back there. Do you have songs that do the same for you with Buenos Aires?
So it will be, a drastic change... people I know are already telling me about it... I'll go just to visit, that's all. I like where I am, in fact I want to go to a quiet village but here in Spain.
If there are songs but they are in Spanish... before I never paid attention to them but now I listen to them and it makes me nostalgic, because of people in my family that I had and they liked them a lot.
The tango was never my favourite but now I listen to it and it brings back memories.
I don't really know any Spanish songs, I guess not knowing the language doesn't help.
It's been 3 years that we moved away from our home, the one where my two brothers and I grew up in. We lived there for two decades, and finally in 2020 we had to move because we needed a bigger place. My brothers are all grown up now and I also got married, so we had to move. That area was so well known to us, familiar faces all around. I doubt we'll ever have something like that again.
Now, even though the house is bigger, it just doesn't feel like a home, and nor can we call it our own.
Do you think you'd ever go back and live there? Would you even want to? I mean in the town, not necessarily in the same house.
I surely wouldn't mind, that place was quiet and had a fair bit of green too. We actually tried looking for a house there, but the houses there were just too old and small. That is why we just had to move out.
And even now we're not living that far away, that old area is probably about 2 to 3 kilometers away from our current house. It's just in a much older part of town.
Ah ok, so you're still in the same town.
I moved quite a long way from mine, much farther than a few kilometres, but I go through there now and then, several times a year I guess. I could go back and live there but it would not feel the same.
Do you think you'll even move to a more distant location? Overseas maybe?
Yeah, you can say that. And Dhaka is a small city after all, it's really small, but also really crowded too.
I feel like it'd be the same experience for me, it surely wouldn't feel the same.
I see myself leaving in about 5 to 10 years I guess, probably with my wife, or with my whole family even, depends on the opportunity and timing really. But where though? I don't know for sure. For now I'm just laying the foundation here, taking care of my parents and waiting for my younger brothers to finish their higher studies. The rest, time will tell, hopefully.
You're young, there's time to consolidate your position and think things through so that you end up in the right place. In the meantime just focus on living life as best you can as that's all any of us can really do.
I have something planned, it's not full-proof, not yet at least, but as I keep working on it, I surely am taking my time to live life every now and then, that truly is all we can really do.
Well, all the best with that, I hope it works out.
Thanks man, I know I'll need it. 🍻 Considering my streak of bad luck, I'll need every bit of support and the good wishes I can get my hands on lol.
I'm home now in the house I lived in in my late teens. Everything is in the same place as they were two years ago since I was last here and I feel nostalgic. I missed the house and family but I didn't miss the town. All my friends have long left the town because it's hard to grow here.
Ok, so you went back after a couple years. How are you coping with living in a town you do not like?
I'm only here for two weeks so it's not unbearable. I'm loving being with my parents.
Ok, so you've not moved back there. Fair enough.
Definitely a country boy given your love of country music! Great tunes that you selected. I still live about 15 minutes from where I grew up, but in a different city. It is interesting to see how much the area has grown. If you go even further past where I grew up you get even deeper into the country. That's where my sister just moved to after living in the big city for many years. She definitely seems happier now.
Yep, for sure and I'd not have it any other way.
How good are these tracks! There's so many more I could have linked but three means three I guess. Lol.
Do you ever wish you went further away or did you make a wilful decision to stay fairly local?
With my sister being so far away and my parents only having me, that was definitely part of it. I did look at moving down to Ohio at one point, but I didn't get the job. The only artist in your trifecta I haven't seen live is Tim McGraw. My wife has seen him though.
I'm not that far from my own home town, despite having lived and worked in other places a long way away. No, I can be back within 35 minutes, but there's not much ther now, for me anyway.
I saw Tim McGraw and Faith Hill together on one occasion. Great concert. If you get a chance, jump at it.
I'm pretty sure she saw them together as well. The one major artist that we have left on our bucket list is Garth Brooks. We gave up a chance to see him a while ago and we have been kicking ourselves ever since. Now that we saw George Strait this past summer, we just need to make it to a Garth show.
I hope you get to one his shows sometime; I hear he's taken up residence at a Las Vegas casino and is doing shows.
Yeah, that would be cool. We don't have much reason to go back to Vegas except maybe for that. Plus that new sphere they made looks cool.
Thank you very much for that beautiful account of your memories of where you were born you grew up next to your parents and thanks to that you are a good man and human being.
Of course, I have those memories of my childhood, and coincidentally soon I'm going to write a post that talks about those changes that progress, and in my case the country's politics, affects in such a way that I'm in the process of emigrating for the third time, with J.R., and it's not easy, even though wherever I go I carry my personal history, my identity, and everyday actions.
I walked with you through that village spinning wheat, and dusty, friend, what remains intact is the affection, the values, and the lived history...it's the closest thing to home.🙌🌺
I think we're all a culmination of the places we've been and the things we've done; I like to think I'm a better person because of those things, the good and bad, and that I can take them and move forward towards even better things.
That's what we are walking compendiums and passing through this world.
Have a great day Galen ahead of you today.
Thank you for your look and walking beside me. 🍀🌀
I can imagine how you feel when you wanted to go get coffee and didn't see anyone and also the place looks new. Thats because you have visited that place since a very long time and the place is looking very new to you again.
The place is a very beautiful one and with the way you talked about it, it must be a very beautiful place
Nice one!
It was a nice place to grow up and I was privileged to begin my life there and experience my early years there in such a wholesome place.
I also have little similar story that I was grown up in village where everyone loves to help others and there is purity of living and life with lack of fast food points, businesses and people are much into fields and home chores. But now the area in which I am living is also a village but it is kind of advance village.
And my previous village is still a little same just people's attitudes has been changed. And I think this thing is different from you.
Things change I guess, people too, and we need to change with it. Fortunately we have memories and that can be of some solace.
I love your story, sir, it's a community that is fast-growing and evolving because of its economic status. We may just retain the memories of such a place and come back to visit, but we cannot retain the place as it is. I enjoy reading your post. I moved from place to place too which makes me relate to this post.
I agree, commercial and financial needs will always accelerate the growth of some places, even if it causes the family-owned businesses to give way to the corporations.
Yes, it surely did. Sacrifices will arise especially when it comes to a booming economic development of a place. Many farmers here in our place had given up their beloved farms looking forward to a more developed community.
That's a shame really, farmers are the lifeblood of our community producing so much of what we use. It's also an honourable and respected job-function.
We really feel bad about that. But some are really find it really hard to pursue farming, especially the old ones because the youngsters already left their place trying to find a brighter future in the city.
Yep, it's the same here, the younger generation and reluctant to stay on the farm and there's no future for it without people to work it effectively.
Yup, that's what happened here that's why even if it hurts them, they are forced to sell their lots for them to provide for their family. Sacrifice.
I still live in not so far from where I lived as a child.
The house where I was born was a quiet little neighborhood, with medium little houses where most had young families with children or someone's grandparents. :) I don't know how the neighborhood is now. I saw a post where it was for sale once and there was no more shrubbery on the front of the house and someone had painted the brick base black. Looked bad. That is where I lived till I was 8. There were two great climbing trees, a swing set and a tractor tire sandbox there when I was little. We played most of the days outside with each other and our neighborhood friends. So MANY very young memories there.
The house we moved too when I was 8 was a bigger, nicer brick home, but also in a neighborhood where many houses for blocks around were young families with children that we went to school with. There were many girls around my age and the ages of my siblings. There, we also played outside on a daily basis either in our yard, which also had a great sand pile under some trees, a swing set some local wood patches where we built fun club houses between the trees, "thatching" the sides with branches from other trees..... and tree houses of course. There was a field behind our next door neighbors that was big enough for baseball games if there were enough friends out at the same time or "kick the can" ..... we never really wanted to go inside, well, except when we got hungry. LOL ! We lived in the second house till I finished school and left home.
Some years back, I rode past the second house and someone had put a RED tin roof on it. Totally out of place for the style of the neighborhood. Although that is all good in certain places, it did not look right there. I bet their neighbors were delighted....LOL
Oh the memories of going back to those areas for another look down memory lane. The folks that were there all those years ago are no longer there.
Isn't it weird to go back past the house we grew up in after it's been sold and seeing what those people have done with it; whatever they've done rarely feels right.
I tend not to go back past where I grew up, although very occasionally I drive past and take a look, it makes me feel sad really, for many reasons.
You can go back but you can't go home. I moved from my home county of 7000 people to one with 700,000 people three hours away when I went off to the university. My house had burned down a couple days before I graduated high school which turned out to be a pretty good stand-in for burning the boats behind you. I miss my hometown, or at least the fond memories I have of it, but that place doesn't exist anymore. Most of my friends and family are either dead, moved away or in jail and the differences between my experiences and those of the people who never left is enough to make it awkward when I do go back.
Got a chuckle out of Harvest Time, that song is about flatlander farming, wasn't anything like that where I grew up. Your tunes made me think of Rural Route by Chris Knight, feel like it does a good job of capturing the mixed feelings of going back home.
Yep, that's a big jump in population and with that comes other things people like you and I may not have experienced in our home towns; we adapt, that's how it is, but I don't think I've ever felt as comfortable living in a big city as I have in the country. (I get your awkward when you go back comment too...different experiences bring different mindsets.)
Yeo, flat-land farming mainly, however it's one of the worlds most famous vineyard/wine-making regions also and rolling hills feature prominently, as does the industry that pops up around wine.
Yeah, it takes a while but we adjust. I'm much more comfortable here now but the hills and hollers will always be my natural environment. Oddly enough, I think the hardest part for me was dealing with boredom, most of the things we did for entertainment back home would earn you a conversation with law enforcement in the city. Or the fire department, they get excited about bonfires up here.
Gotcha, was just too rugged a landscape for that sort of thing in eastern Kentucky. Subsistence farming with tobacco for a cash crop (officially) and cannabis in the hard to reach parts. Until they started legalizing it, Kentucky was usually #3 in the states for growing pot and most of it came from my neck of the woods. Woody Harrelson even got arrested and acquitted in my hometown for planting hemp seeds.
Yep, I get that. I have some stories I could tell, but I'd probably end up getting arrested!
Good old Woody huh? I never used to like him in the early days but have come to appreciate him and the roles he played, he started taking it less seriously I think, which was a good thing.
Meanwhile Back At Mama’s is a gorgeous song now I must say, and surprisingly one I never heard before, I can see how that one would bring you back to your youth and growing up in your small country town. I suppose nothing ever quite stays the same, no matter how much we want it to, as you say "progress" comes along and things change.
Here in Ireland I do my best to support small local business, and where possible try to avoid the big chains. There are still some great little shops and coffee shops around, but like your hometown the massive multinationals and corporations have come to town too and they lack personality and character, give me a small local business every time, so long as the quality is good, I don't mind paying more.
Luke Bryan's Harvest Time another good tune and Refrigerator Door too. You can't beat a bit of nostalgia and it's important to know where you came from and the influences that made you the person that you have become.
It's good to hear that you support the small family owned places where possible but it's getting more difficult, here at least. They're either gone or going, making room for those big stores that have the buying power. National chain-supermarkets set the price, caps it, for products they buy which makes it difficult for the suppliers to make money, especially as their costs increase - they can't increase their price to suit. So...they go out of business...but the supermarket promotes, every day low prices to the consumer. We win when we shop there, but the whole country loses. (They forced prices down with the farmers too, but for less despite increasing production costs.)
It'll not end anywhere good once there's no competition for those supermarket chains.
Good songs huh? I love them.
Ya that's the thing, but luckily in Galway there's still a lot of small local businesses thriving... It's that kind of City
The thing with the supermarkets driving cost down too is that eventually quality suffers too and falls...
Ya man, good listening for sure. Got an early start on my listening this week for a change.