Tell me one thing special about your home town

[NJmaverick]

anything, could be the food, a local attraction, the people or anything else.

[Bunny]

1. The Johnstown Flood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_flood

An iconic image


The Stone Bridge


Victim Graves at Grandview Cemetary

[Richardo]

2. That might be the next David McCullough book I read...

[Bunny]

4. That's an excellent book!

McCullough tells that story in an outstanding way.

:hi: Richardo!

[Richardo]

12. As soon as I finish 'Path Between the Seas' I'll get a copy...

...I always take a BunnyRec(c).

:hi: Bunny! :pals:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

99. An American Doctor's Odyssey

is a book I have where the author describes surviving the Johnstown Flood.

[madinmaryland]

3. My hometown is the exclusive maker of all the footballs used in the NFL.

Yeah. It's that exciting!

:D

[NJmaverick]

15. Hey those footballs are very important

with out them we would never learn how overrated the Cowboys are every year.:evilgrin:

:toast:

[madinmaryland]

22. And we would not have gotten to see Jerry Jones Memorial Stadium!

:D

and FIVE SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONSHIPS!!

[NJmaverick]

26. I'll give you that stadium

I was very dissappointed with what the combined financial might of the Giants and Jets produced. I really was expecting something more in line with what Jones built. Then again the Giants and Jets didn't charge the taxpayers a dime.

[KamaAina]

63. What millennium was that, again?

+44-6! :P

[madinmaryland]

83. ...

Even LynneSin has moved on!

[Richardo]

5. East Rochester, Pennsylvania is at coordinates 40°41;N 80°16W

Damn, population is down to 623 people as of 2000. :cry: If my mom and dad, my brothers and I moved back, our family would increase the population by almost 10%.

[NJmaverick]

6. Why are you losing all your people?

[Richardo]

9. Steel mills closed and nothing replaced them

Nearby Rochester is at 4,000 and I thought THAT was small.

[NJmaverick]

14. How big was your town when the steel mills were open?

[KamaAina]

65. You have 60 brothers?!

:wow:

You may possibly mean 1%. :P

[Richardo]

78. Richardo = PoliSci Major = No math skillz

You got me :blush:

[tabbycat31]

7. it's the subject of a LBN thread now

seriously 8 were just killed there by a driver on the wrong side of a highway.

[NJmaverick]

11. I heard that on the radio, terrible story

was it one of those exit ramps that people can easily make this sort of mistake? In other words how hard was it to get on the highway in the wrong direction?

[tabbycat31]

17. no the exits are pretty clear

I must admit (I don't live there anymore) that I haven't driven that road in awhile, but it's pretty well marked (I am going to have one of my friends still in the area go and check it out again since I haven't driven that road in a few years). I have a feeling alcohol was involved.

[av8rdave]

8. Lucille Ball is from mine

[NJmaverick]

21. Do they have anything honoring her?

[av8rdave]

86. I think they have some kind of annual "Lucy Fest"

Not something I would go rushing to attend. I haven't lived there since 1970, and no longer have family there.

[zabet]

10. Alice Faye Williams....

a.k.a Afeni Shakur; a prominent member of the Black Panther Party and more famously, the mother of the rapper Tupac Shakur, was born in Lumberton on January 10, 1947.

David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet was set in Lumberton, though it was actually filmed in nearby Wilmington. This situation raised some problems during filming, so Lynch filmed a small sequence in Lumberton and was subsequently allowed to use the name. <---- I remember this...was home visiting the folks when all of this was going on.

[NJmaverick]

20. How odd, why wouldn't they just film the whole thing in Lumberton?

[zabet]

29. Knowing the general...

'stick up the butt' attitude of the people around there....this was not surprising to me at all. Square in the Bible Belt and a Church on every corner, Blue Velvet just did not promote 'Good Christian Ideals'. Least ways that is what my folks say and Dad was a 'big wheel' back in those days. :shrug:

[Jokerman]

13. Naturally fluoridated water.

Town is built over this huge aquifer that has it's own fluoride deposits.

Some of the original "Crest Tests" were held there.

[MissHoneychurch]

16. We have a dish

called Frankfurt Green Sauce. It is a cold sauce made with 7 different herbs. You either eat it with hard boiled eggs or with boiled fillet. And with potatoes.

According to Wiki

There are two traditional types of Hessian Green Sauce which are popular in the Frankfurt am Main and Kassel area. The Frankfurt-style is made from hard-boiled eggs, oil, vinegar, salt, and generous amount of seven fresh herbs, namely borage, sorrel, cress, chervil, chives, parsley, and salad burnet. Variants, often due to seasonal availability include dill, lovage, lemon balm and even spinach or basil. In more frugal times, daisy leaves, broad plantain leaves, and dandelion leaves were also used. Different to mayonnaise, cooked complete eggs are used together with sour cream as creamy base of the sauce. Some variations use buttermilk or quark, or yogurt. The green sauce of the city of Kassel is based on a combination of sour cream and Schmand.

The sauce is served with peeled boiled potatoes, accompanying either hard-boiled eggs or roasted beef brisket. Even cooked fish or roast beef are served together with the cold and refreshing sauce as main courses. Green sauce is as well served as a side dish to barbecue. The local speciality apple cider is a possible accompanying drink. Green sauce was supposedly Goethe's favourite meal; a legend that his mother invented it is likely apocryphal.

[NJmaverick]

18. What is quark?

[MissHoneychurch]

24. Curd cheese

something one doesn't get in the U.S. for whatever reason

[Deep13]

19. Leicester, MA, town hall was an Underground Railroad "station." nt

[PVnRT]

23. Birthplace of Eugene Debs (n/t)

[NJmaverick]

25. Who is Eugene Debs?

:dunce:

[PVnRT]

30. That guy that did that one thing (n/t)

[intheflow]

71. Debs was a socialist who ran for president several times

in the early 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Debs

[Burma Jones]

27. We have some famous residents.....

Wolf Blitzer
John Glenn
Patrick Ewing
Barry Levinson
Ted Koppel
Lynda Carter
Maria Shriver grew up here
Michael Jordan used to live here
Mike Tyson used to live here

and some others....

[Tuesday Afternoon]

28. I live here.

I am pretty damn special. :)

[NJmaverick]

35. That would make it special

:hi:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

44. ~

;) :hug: :hi:

[Auggie]

31. First Mormon Temple in the U.S.

[GreenPartyVoter]

32. It was founded in 1613 and has the oldest post office in continuous operation in the US.

[DBoon]

33. Charles Bukowski got drunk there

nt

[rrneck]

34. Pop. 1500 - one stop light - three liquor stores. nt

[NJmaverick]

36. Nice ratio

:thumbsup:

[RadiationTherapy]

37. Kielbasa festival. Polka and kielbasa all day long.

gross.

Chicopee held an annual kielbasa festival at the Fairfield Mall (now the site of Chicopee Crossing on Memorial Drive) until the mid 1990's. The festival featured the World's Largest Kielbasa for a number of years (several times the city's kielbasa lost to a kielbasa in Krakow, Poland).

[NJmaverick]

39. Is there beer?

:beer:

[RadiationTherapy]

52. Budweiser AND Miller High Life.

[NJmaverick]

56. harsh

[VMI Dem]

38. The burial place of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

[NJmaverick]

42. Jackson's arm or the rest of him?

[VMI Dem]

45. The rest of him.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

76. Hey!

I was just down there last week!

Lexington is a beautiful town. :hi:

[dgibby]

88. And it's about 30 miles from my hometown,

which has the largest railroad expansion bridge in the world.

[Bertha Venation]

40. The nicest things in my hometown are gone.

The original pier and the Golden Bear (a club).

[NJmaverick]

47. You live in a shore community?

[Bertha Venation]

48. I did - I grew up in Huntington Beach, CA.

I consider that, not where I live, my hometown.

Where I live is just where I live. I really love it, but I'm not that emotionally invested in it.

But the place I grew up in has my heart.

[seabeyond]

41. free 72 oz steak if you eat with all the trimmings. that is it.

oh, but not my home town. i just live here

[NJmaverick]

46. There's always that debate over what is considered to be one's home town

[seabeyond]

51. hm. i guess it depends if you like the place or not. when i realized i was here for 2 decades

my heart started beating faster, short breath and asked hubby, how long before i am a texan.

he laughed and said never

so, i am cool, wink

[Taverner]

43. San Jose CA - home of lots of things

Home of The Doobie Brothers AND The Smothers Brothers!

[KamaAina]

64. Not to mention me, as of Thursday night

big-time interview Friday morning, with one of the emerging leaders in my field!

[Taverner]

66. Awesome! Is this for a job out here?

[KamaAina]

68. Indeed it is, my good man.

Mine has been circling the drain for a solid year and a half now. :eyes:

[Taverner]

73. Congrats!

Welcome to California!

[KamaAina]

75. Well, it isn't a fait accompli just yet.

You're a little ahead of the script!

[Initech]

49. Mine is home to of one of the most insane jackasses ever to become president.

[charlie and algernon]

50. population of 5,000 and used to have a racetrack for 60,000+

Indy Car and NASCAR used to race there for decades, then the idiots in the town council stopped promoting the races. It got to the point where you could be driving in town and have no idea it was race day. So of course they could no longer even get 40,000 to attend and all races have been cancelled. The stands have gone, but the actual race track is still there and as of now they have no plans to rebuild. It really sucks. The Andretti racing family live in town and when they were racing, the town made a huge deal of the races. Checkered flags on all the street posts, people had good luck messages on the roofs of their houses. Then the Andrettis stopped racing and the town decided they couldn't give a shit about the race track in their back yard.

[NJmaverick]

54. I've been to that race track

are you saying it's gone?

[charlie and algernon]

55. The track surface is still there

but the stands have been sold to other racetracks. If you drove down that road for the first time ever today, you'd wonder why there was a random fence surrounding a field with a few buildings in it.

One plan that almost went through was to build apartments, a shopping center, and a concert venue, possibly a hockey rink. Nothing is in the works now and is a prime example that the town is on life support.

[NJmaverick]

72. That's just stupid

it was the only race track in the area. Run right, it should have been a gold mine.

[Broken_Hero]

53. Bridge to no where...nt

[fizzgig]

57. main street usa at disney land is supposedly roughly based on my town's historic district

and we've become quite well known for our microbreweries

[NewJeffCT]

62. that's pretty cool

both the disney & the microbreweries

[fizzgig]

85. the district gave my fiance the heebie jeebies when he first moved here

main street usa creeped him out when he was a kid and he recognized it immediately. i tease him about it now.

[NewJeffCT]

58. My town was once featured on "My Super Sweet 16"

so, there are a few spoiled rich kids around...

[Initech]

69. Those shows send me into a violent rage.

Honestly any kid that spends that much on a birthday party should be required to spend a couple months in Rwanda or Somalia.

[NewJeffCT]

80. I've only heard of the show

and, only knew about the super sweet 16 when I looked on my town's wikipedia page.

No noted celebs on the wikipedia page, so it was either super sweet 16, or the fact that it was rated the 3rd safest town in America... figured the super sweet 16 would be more notable.

[Initech]

81. Yeah my town doesnt have much either.

It kinda sucks actually.

[jotsy]

59. I live in one of the most bicycle friendly towns in the country,

and on a clear day, you can see three different mountain peaks from the same spot, in the middle of the city!

[NJmaverick]

60. How are they bike friendly?

[KamaAina]

61. It is the most isolated urban center on Earth

Our nearest* neighbor is San Francisco, 2400 miles away.

[madamesilverspurs]

67. "Swift Justice", a documentary about

the immigration raids of 2006, was filmed here. It's hard to watch, as I was working just two streets away at the time and watched the whole thing come down. End of that day I went home and cried, wondering what the hell we had become. The producers are putting the finishing touches on the final product; keep your eyes peeled for the DVD.

[likesmountains 52]

70. Narrow Gauge train...

[fizzgig]

91. you don't happen to live in leadville, do you?

i have a very vague memory of having ridden that train when i was little, but i'm not sure if i actually did or if it was a dream.

[likesmountains 52]

94. Durango..we used to go to Leadville when I was a kid, but all we ever saw was the

Baby Doe Tabor/ Matchless Mine Museum. For some reason my dad wanted to take all of our out of town relatives there.:shrug:

[intheflow]

74. My hometown is the home of Friendly's Ice Cream.

Yum! :9

http://www.friendlys.com/ice-cream/

[mix]

77. Rincon

Carpinteria, CA (just south of Santa Barbara)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

79. Jim Henson went to my high school.

[gardenista]

98. My mom dated him.

Thought he was too into the puppets...

Little did she know. Glad she met my Dad, though!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

111. Wow!

Was she a Hyattsvillian? Or was this after he moved away?
I imagine dating a puppeteer could take some adjustment...like dating a musician. :rofl:

[frogmarch]

82. Not far from my house,

just outside of town, the body of a local college prof, who some students described as "effeminate" was found lashed to a post with barbed wire and burned, and the police claim it was suicide. :eyes:

[Kali]

84. I don't live in a town but

The town where I do most shopping and kids went to school: Benson's main claim to fame is Kartchner Caverns http://www.azstateparks.com/Parks/KACA/index.html

The hamlet where I get my mail has this history: The Dragoon Springs Massacre--September 1858, in Arizona, stage company workers are brutally murdered in their sleep at the Dragoon Springs Stage Station. The motives for the massacre are still unknown. (copy and pasted from http://www.tv.com/wild-west-tech/massacres-ii/episode/525778/summary.html )

And the town where I do some banking and the local auction barn operates: birthplace of Rex Allen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Allen and home of the Rex Allen Museum http://www.rexallenmuseum.org/ (also soon to be home of the Marty Robbins Museum - although he was born in Glendale)

oh I see it has opened!http://www.friendsofmartyrobbins.org/

[NJmaverick]

90. How can you not live in a town?

[Kali]

96. Ranches are often far from towns.

The house is 12 miles from the nearest town west, and 20 to the east. Get my mail in a hamlet about 6 miles away (basically a post office, an antique store, and some doublewides - used to be a railroad station)

House location:






Oh and here is another local attraction. It's not in a town either.

[brendan120678]

87. I currently live where...

"The forces of slime meet the forces of evil."

[Tommy_Carcetti]

89. The Giant Triangle

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sevensixfive/sets/72157594482068727/

[carpetbagger]

92. Birthplace of Blue Oyster Cult.

Site of a Revolutionary battlefield (bullets still embedded in the churches), and now home of Dee Snider.

[EndersDame]

93. So Many-Barton Springs, SXSW Willie Nelson

Kerby Lane Cafe
Ruta Maya
The Continental Club
The Bats underneath Congress Ave Bridge
the Hippies

[backwoodsbob]

95. Bluefield

known and advertised as natures airconditioned city

Rarely gets above 82 or so in the summer and very mild winters.

oh and Gilligan from Gilligans Island ran a local progressive radio station from neighboring Princeton where he lived

[gardenista]

97. Eleanor Roosevelt used to sit in one of our trees

http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=188

Then in the 70's the city decided to commemorate the whole thing and in digging the footings for the ceremonial tree cage, killed all the roots. It was cut down five years later, and heralded by all as the Eleanor Roosevelt Stump.

According to the link above, an ash was planted in 2002.

As a child, I just loved thinking about good old Eleanor up there in the tree, observing the building of the city.


edit- date correction

[ornotna]

100. Shark's tooth capital of the world

Also 3 of the 9/11 terrorists lived here for flight training.

http://www.venice-fla.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice,_Florida

[csziggy]

101. Scenes from several movies have been filmed there

The funeral parlor in "My Girl" was where a friend lived when we were in high school. Another house was used in "China Moon."

And it is the home of the amazing "Wonder House - http://www.eastpolklifestyles.com/stories/0709/wonder.shtml

[AllenVanAllen]

102. It's the Space City

Peace :hi:

[ccharles000]

103. O. Henry was born here

[Hell Hath No Fury]

104. San Francisco sourdough bread --

This bread can't be made exactly the same anywhere else in the world due to the very living organism that creates sourdough -- it is dependant on the sea location and the fog. Just as cave cultured cheeses taste specific to the caves they were stored in, sourdough tastes specific to the area it is made in. And back in the day before Health Inspectors, another factor was the chest sweat of bakers working in basement bakeries -- the bakers would work in sleevless undershirts and actually thwack the balls of sourdough against their chests as they worked, adding their own salt and bacteria to the bread. Oldtimers swore the bread never tasted the same after health laws forced the bakers to stop the practice. :D











Growing up on this bread spoils you for another kind of bread -- everything else tastes flat and boring. :( Whether you are just slatering butter on a slice or making a deli sandwich, the crunchy crust, the chewy crumb, and the tang specific to sourdough make for a great mouth experience. :9

Damn. Now I have to go out and buy some bread! :D

[mix]

108. my favorite bread

:hi:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

109. Mmmmmm....

:hi:

Boudin has a Bread Club where you get loaves delivered once a month:

http://store.boudinbakery.com/shared/StoreFront/default.asp?CS=boudin&StoreType=BtoC&Count1=16918361&Count2=934058785&CategoryID=8&Target=products.asp


My Mom and sister live away from the City and hell is to be paid if I show up without a few loaves when I visit! :D

[mix]

110. That's a good idea, thanks.

[ZoltarSpeaks]

105. Our only TV station had one of the tallest towers in the US until

a plane ran into it and collapsed the tower and the studios beneath it. They rebuilt a shorter version and wisely located the studios off site.

Other than that, I can't think of a single thing worth mentioning.

[ZoltarSpeaks]

106. Oops, I forgot. We were in a movie..

"The Giant Spider Invasion", starring the Skipper from Gilligan's island was filmed around my hometown and had a scene filmed in the physics lab where I worked before going to college. Definitely not even "B" movie quality but it's fun seeing all of the old electronic equipment that I worked on.

[skygazer]

107. Voted to arrest Bush and Cheney if they ever showed their ugly mugs

I love my hometown. :P