I want to say a public thanks to our own Linda Broday. This weekend, she and the Red River Romance writers invited me to speak at their group, then bought me lunch and came out in force for my booksigning for THE LONER.
What made this trip so much fun–in addition to the company–was that it allowed me the opportunity to go home again to Wichita Falls, Texas, the town where I grew up. It had been quite a while since I’d been back. I have no family there anymore and except for ocassional road trips for the BEST CATFISH IN THE WORLD at Bill’s just across the Red River, I rarely make the trip. 
( I know it doesn’t look like much, but my oh my, the food is yummo.)
I arrived in town early, so I spent awhile driving around the old neighborhood and old haunts. They’re building on to Fain Elementary. The pool has a new clubhouse and it can’t possibly be as much fun without the high dive. Kemp Library is still a lovely old building, but it isn’t the library anymore–which is why I ended up arriving late for my speech. How dare they move the library!!! I LOVED that library. It’s where I found the synonym book that helped me win the contest in fourth grade not to mention where I learned to love to read and look where that took me! And what’s with the overpass on Kell? And finally, hey, you on Alamo Drive. Paint my Mom and Dad’s house!!! It looks terrible.
It was truly a lovely trip down memory lane.
I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a relatively small town in Texas. It was a safe, friendly place where you were free enough to get into enough trouble to make life interesting, but not too much trouble to make life…troublesome. Those years provided the foundation not only for who I am today, but also for the stories I’ve written since leaving. I loved living there, but like so many others, I couldn’t wait to leave. I went away to college and never moved back.
But you know what? I can still go home. Thanks, Linda, for reminding me of that.
How about the rest of you P&P readers? Do you go home again?
Nah, I don’t like going home again..although it’s been a necessary evil. My mom kinda let the place go to wrack and ruin after my dad died so now my brother and I get to shovel it out LOL. But…in a way, he and I get to revisit our childhood–which was very happy. So I do enjoy that.
But a few years ago, I got to revisit the darling Nebraska college town where I spent four very formative years. It was such a change from life in Southern California: cobbled streets, everything you could possibly need within walking distance, one traffic light suspended on cables. A gorgeous courthouse in the center of town. And I found out I really am a small-town country girl at heart.
It was almost surreal visiting the campus and town after all these years. So much hadn’t changed that I still felt 18. The cobbled streets haven’t been paved over, yay, and the college itself is still a pretty collection of New England brick architecture surrounded by Plum Creek and cornfields. (Nebraska is a very under-served location in historical romance novels LOL. It is beautiful!)
So thanks, Geralyn, for the little hobble down Memory Lane today!
“They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot”…
LOL It’s early, can you tell?
I love to go home again. Albeit, things have changed a lot. The construction company my dad works for remodeled and expanded the library(and it’s beautiful), they moved Wal-mart, Kroger, the Post Office. Save-A-Lot, where I worked before I moved here, is still in the same spot and a few of my old co-workers are still there, so I have to stop by and say hi when I’m up there. They turned the park where I used to go swing into a Veteran’s Memorial because they’ve remodeled the old park and built a new one across town.
Things are different, and yet they still feel the same to me in so many ways. I get homesick a lot because I live in the southern part of KY now, about a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive away. My daughter will be starting kindergarten here in August and in some ways that just feels wrong- even though the schools have changed a lot, I just always thought my kids would go to school in the same little town I grew up in.
My uncles still live in the house my grandparents had when I was little and it’s run down (and so are my uncles). My mom and dad’s house still fills me with nostalgia when I go back for visits. My roots are still there. It’s where my love of reading and writing was planted and grew big and strong.
I just can’t imagine ever letting go of my roots there in my hometown. I think if I did, I wouldn’t quite be me. It doesn’t hurt that Montgomery Gentry is from around the same area and they have that song “My Town” which was written about a place not far from my own “my town” so that speaks to me anytime I hear it.
Thanks for blogging about home. It’s been on my mind a lot lately. {{hugs}}
First, I just have to say that I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED “THE LONER” and I sure wish you were coming to a booksigning in my part of the country!
I grew up in a very small, one traffic-light town in Michigan and enjoyed a wonderful childhood in the innocent 50’s. In ‘69 I left for college and never moved back. My parents, with all my younger siblings, moved to Florida while I was away at college (yes, they did leave a forwarding address ;)) and my grandparents were all deceased so there was no compelling reason to return to my hometown. Fast forward 30 years. One of my younger brothers moved back to the hometown and I went to visit. Talk about surreal, Twilight Zone experiences. The names on the mainstreet storefronts have changed (except for the Elite Bar which will probably be there for eternity), there are now two traffic lights, the hospital is a nursing home and they tore down the paper mill and the old high school but, except for that, it could be the same town I grew up in. There’s no Walmart or Kmart, no big box stores of any type, not much growth at all. Downtown really hasn’t grown or changed much since I lived there. What has changed is the beautiful lake we lived on. Every square inch of land has been taken over by McMansions. All the lovely old summer cottages from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s with the gorgeous large rolling lawns overlooking the lake have been torn down or overshadowed by huge three story modern weekend and summer houses (owned by people from “the city”) that take up all but a small patch of grass and block the lake view from the road and every piece of property that has the misfortune to be behind them. That broke my heart and although I’ve been back to visit my brother (who lives in town) a few more times I’ve never returned to the lake.
I do like to travel home some..my family is still there! I like to see places again..like my high school and college..things like that!
and Geralyn…I just finished THE LONER!! LOVE IT!
Tanya, where at in Nebraska???
I’m from Nebraska.
And you know what? I’m learning Nebraska is a great setting for historical westerns. It is perfect cowboy country. It also works great for contemporary westerns. The western half of Nebraska is the Sandhills and it’s rugged, rolling plains, beautiful rivers, the occasional bluffs and mountains and the Toadstool National Park…which I’d like to set a book in sometime…with cattle everwhere and cowboys on horseback or ‘rassling’ a big honkin’ truck over the rugged land.
Anyone who walked University of Nebraska’s East Campus in Lincoln, Nebraska, would just be captivated by that landscaping, a true thing of beauty.
What was your post about again???
Oh yeah, going home.
I live ten miles from my childhood home. My husband and I live THREE miles from HIS childhood home and we live in the house his grandfather built ninety years ago.
So I don’t know if you can go home again. I doubt I’ll ever leave so how can I find out???
Hi Geralyn!! We were so thrilled to have you come visit us. We had a great time. Yeah, Wichita Falls is really seeing lots of changes. I’m sure it was a shock to see that we actually have a big overpass above the downtown area. It only took us twenty years. lol
It’s really painful to go home again after an extended time away. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. But sometimes you get curious to see how things have changed. I’ve only visited my hometown once since I left there in 1970 and it wasn’t a pleasurable experience. Everything had changed and not for the good. The house where I grew up seemed to have shrunk and looks like it’s in the last throes of death. Depressing. And the neighborhood is in the bad part of town now. No, I’m not going back. It’s time to go forward and keep the memories of my childhood intact.
Hey, next time you have a hankering to go to Bill’s Catfish again, stop and say hi. You’re always welcome anytime!
Geralyn, The Loner is on my TBR list. Can’t wait.
And Mary: Seward. I agree, Nebraska is calling out for recognition among us romance-o–philes. It is gorgeous country with soooo much history. I have a Nebr. set (near Platte Center) story that’s doing well in contests. Fictional name: Paradise. So keep your fingers crossed.
Good for you, Tanya. Good luck. I got my first book published, in a bit of a round about way, because of a contest win so I believe in them.
Home for me is in Southern California. I miss it terribly and go back a couple of times a year. We live in northern Virginia now. It’s a nice place with lots of history, but I miss the beach : )
I envy those of you who either live close to your childhood home, or who enjoy going back for visits.
My father moved us around a lot. I was born in a logging camp in Northern Ontario, but we soon moved into town until I was six. I spent my elementary school years in 3 different houses in Thunder Bay, Ontario then my Jr and Sr high school years in Winnipeg, Manitoba. By the time I joined the Canadian Armed Forces at 17, I’d live in 20 different houses.
So, I don’t really have a hometown to go back to. Because of this, when God surprised us with our 2nd crop of kids, we retired from the CAF and settled down in small-town Saskatchewan.
Unlike me, who was forced to leave old friends behind and find new ones every year or so, my kids go to the same school with the same classmates they’ve had since kindergarten. They’re making lasting friendships…not with everyone, but with a select few.
When they ‘come home’, they’ll be able to walk down the street and answer greetings thrown their way and know who said them.
Unlike me. I remember the houses we lived in. But the neighbors cast a wary eye as I walk or drive by. I am a stranger there. Nobody remembers the quick glimpse they caught of the little girl I used to be. Just a wrinkle in their time.
I do not go home again.
The home I grew up in is now a tree farm. We lived in the country 25 miles from the nearest town. When my parents passed, my brother sold to a timber company. they burned the house and barn down and planted trees.
The only time I come close to “going home” is the annual Memorial Day visit to the cemetery. A trip down “Main Street” to see the changes is always a part of the visit. Lunch at the Hiway cafe is a must.
PS, Hi, Mary
PJ and Melissa–THANK YOU for the kind words about THE LONER. Soooo glad you enjoyed it.
And everyone else, I’m enjoying the going home stories! Keep them coming.
Going home is a three-hour drive for me, to the little southern Utah town where I grew up. Like Sue, I do it once a year on Memorial Day, in a car loaded with flowers for the loved ones who’ve passed on–my parents, my daughter, and the baby brother who never had a chance to grow up. The town hasn’t changed much but my family is nearly gone from there, just one frail, elderly uncle and a single male cousin who retired from his city job and moved into the old family home. It’s a bittersweet journey but one I never miss.
Congratulations on your new book, Geralyn. What a fabulous cover!
Elizabeth
Sue D, a big chunk of Main Street is gone. The old pool hall and the Little’s Dry Good store.
Collapsed, a pit in the ground.
I think I’ll conjure an imaginary dead body and write a book about it.
I can’t go home! I am home! I was born in Houston
and have never lived anywhere else! I can go to
the site where our family home stood for 64 years.
Unfortunately, we can’t see the house, it burned
down 3 years ago! We do have photographs and lots
& lots of memories!!
Pat Cochran
Geralyn..I just saw that you are visiting B&N tomorrow!!!! I’ll be there!
oh..forgot to mention..Im melissa29624 over there
another Nebraskan’s chiming in here.
I can sorta go home–but it feels less and less like home since my mom passed away and my grampa moved to assisted living. (gee, have I mentioned often enough he’s 100 and 1/2 now?) The house he and mom shared for many years is up for sale. Not sure I want to see that…
The one place I will always consider home though is a farmhouse where I lived with mom and my grandparents until I started school. But
it’s been torn down. To raise pigs of all things!
There’s so many different landscapes in Nebraska, we could keep cowboys goin’ here forever!
Mary, The downtown sidewalks are being dug up and replaced in Norfolk. I asked a couple of the workers if they had found any bodies. They said “Not yet.” Could be a story there. :).