How many of you ended up at your birth place

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

I doubt there are very many of you that ended up at your original home and birth place. My parents moved to Hendersonville, N.C. in 1946. My dad was drafted and sent home said he had a heart mummer but never had any issues from that. Anyway they bought a one bedroom home and little over 1 1/2 acres for $800.
After both Dad and Mom passed away my sisters offered to sell their part of the home to me so I said yes and went to China to work and bought the home and my shop. I had lived at 11 or 12 different places over time.
When I am anywhere here memories are everywhere. There is not a square inch of the property I have not touched in some way. I helped my dad add on rooms. I helped my mom wash dishes. I held the both as they passed away in this home. Buried my pets in the pet cemetery. Played in the barn, set the barn of fire playing with matches, Dad saved it but my butt did not fare well.
When I am in the garden working I remember as a kid working with my dad we had a huge garden and mom canned everything. My mom never worked outside the home not one single day.
When I dug though all my Mom's stuff she put up newspapers from end of WWII, presidential assassinations, moon landing anything special.
Any room I go into I remember happy times and when life was going to last forever. Once you get older the years pass like weeks and time just runs out.
I never really had a bucket list and if any of you listen to my suggestions you should never have one either. Do what you want when you want and never put it off another day. I have seen too many plan and plan for this great retirement to do their bucket list and not live a year.
So each day I see something new that either Mom or Dad put somewhere that has never been touched. The attic is full and will be tough to clean out but have to. The old garage has things on the shelf that my Dad placed there 50 years ago.
One of my nieces posted today that her son was sworn into the Sheriffs department today. He was a little boy just a few years ago. The sands of time slide though that glass so fast.
I try never to waste a day. Even with my back and neck issues I have to do something here each day. I missed out on going to Africa last year and that is my goal this year. To go walk in the Garden of Eden one more time.
So I do hope some of you have all the memories that I have and can walk around and history just rushes out at you.
There is only ever one HOME and I am still there. When I pass I do not want a grave site biggest waste of good land is golf course and cemetery is what I say. Money is set aside for my ashes to be spread here at home, in Africa and in a special place in Montana.
Have a great day and live every day to the fullest, they are numbered.

 

[detritusmaximus]

I like what you said about golf courses and cemeteries.  I don't really see the point in being in a hole in the ground. Although, I did tell my wife that if, by chance, I get buried, my epitaph better be 'Return To Sender". Since I'm not particularly religious, it makes a nice double joke.

I find it interesting that some people are tied to place and some are not. There have been times when I was upset at moving, but that was mainly fear of change. I've just never considered one single place 'home' except while I was living there. But I grew up in a city and lived in many places in it. I live in a mostly rural area now and work in the city, but miss living in the city. Perhaps my version of your 'home' is just expanded to include my experiences and memories in a larger area.

If my luck ran to winning lotteries (not likely as I don't want to waste the price of a mediocre lunch), I thought it would be nice to pick ten different places, cities/countries/cabins/whatever, and spend a year living in each place to get a feel for it. Not like being a tourist and visit for a week or two and never really get to know it.

I haven't travel anywhere near as much as you have and it sounds like few people have. The world is a big place with many things in it, some wondrous, some not so much. Life is too short to ...well, it's just too short.

 

[Horsin' Around]

I always thought a cemetery to be a cold, lonely, rigid waste of space.  Why not combine it with a golf course? Design in special tracts of land with plots winding around the fairways. Lots of activity and conversation!  Dual use land!

 

[tony-muscle]

Life can be so different to so many people. I will never be able to live were I grew up. It is in another country that has been destroyed by a diabolic and selfish dictatorial regime (believe me, I could write pages of adjetives describing it, but it is not the right forum for it). I have been here for more than 25 years and counting. My life is here and where I grew up is a memory of a place that may never be as radiant as it was.

 

[Kilgon]

Life can be so different to so many people. I will never be able to live were I grew up. It is in another country that has been destroyed by a diabolic and selfish dictatorial regime (believe me, I could write pages of adjetives describing it, but it is not the right forum for it). I have been here for more than 25 years and counting. My life is here and where I grew up is a memory of a place that may never be as radiant as it was.

It's a shame you can't return to where you were born.  Hopefully one day you will get that opportunity to go back and visit. I think that most of us in our later years have a longing to visit our childhood home.        

 

[rvrtrash]

I'm the opposite. I grew up in a small(ish) town in central Washington and we were dirt poor after my Dad took off. We moved every couple of years and even lived in a converted chicken coop for a while. I worked my tail off from the age of 12 (you could do that back then) and am now retired and have a nice house on 20 acres of trees in north Idaho. I imagine the places we lived have probably been torn down by now, but wouldn't go back to any of them on a bet.

 

[rio1856]

"Golf courses are a waste of a perfectly good rifle range".

I was two years old in 1959 when my parents fled the land I was born at. I grew up in Miami. I have great memories as a kid living in Miami during the 60's. When I turned 16 I was working part time and still going to high school when I bought with my own money a 1971 Mach 1 for a $1000.00. I loved driving that car. I later served my community fighting violent crime as a Miami-Dade Police Officer for 27 years. I retired in 2018 and bought my current 72 Q code. I moved after retirement to Immokalee to a quiet peaceful community, I plan to live out my life in peace. I have never returned to the land I was born at, I have no desire or interest to return  even though now travel is allowed there. My roots are here in this great country we live in.

 

[Mister 4x4]

I was born and raised in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of SLC (and no, I am not... you know you were wondering).  Faced with no money for college after high school, I joined the Air Force thinking I'd do my 4 years, get the GI Bill, and get back to SLC to attend the University of Utah Architecture program.  Along the way, I got orders for Izmir, Turkey, and absolutely loved being overseas.  Then I had a follow-on assignment slated for Ghedi-Torre AB, Italy (just outside of Brescia), and had to re-enlist to take it.  So, I did... thinking I'd take the opportunity to see some more of the world on Uncle Sam's dime.  Yeah... well, after they packed my stuff and sent it to Italy, I went home on leave and was notified they cancelled my assignment and were instead sending me to Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, Texas.  Well, crap.  OK - burn some time there, maybe get another overseas assignment, finish out my new enlistment period, then go home and go to school.  Nope.  Met my wife, got out of the Air Force and took a contractor job on-base, she later got out, then I took a Civil Service position, and here I am still in San Angelo, Texas... since Jan 1991 and looking to retire in another 7 years.  Still not my favorite place in the world to be, but I don't hate it nearly as much as when I was first deposited here.  If all things were right in the world, I'd be back in Sandy, but we all know how that's going.