My Hometown

I have five to choose from. I grew up on the "Corporate See America Plan." My father would get promoted or transferred and off we went. I lived in four different homes by the time I was eight. He claims my hometown is where I spent my "deformative years" (teen years) of 8th grade though high school. To me it was the more simpler years (when I was 8-12) of LL, playing baseball all day in the summer when we weren't at the lake or the beach and the woods we played games in. The preteen years were about finding a dime and buying a seven ounce Coke, Finding a penny and buying two mint julips, water ballon fights (or any way we could soak a friend and lots of baseball. It was an era were my dad could give me a $1.50 at 10pm to walk with a friend to the pizza shop to grab a small pizza and not worry about us. We were 10-12 years old at the time.

The Portland, Maine I grew up in is not today's Portland, Maine. It was small town USA when I was a kid. Now it's a small city invaded by people from major cities across the country looking for a better place. In the 80's it was the fastest growing city in America. It now has the most restaurants, per capita in the country. As a kid the big team was the Portland Seahawks, a semi-pro football team. The studs were a QB and a RB from a DIII. Now the Red Sox have a AA team there. There's an AHL hockey team.

Life was simple. Stores were mom and pop stores where the owners knew their customers. A couple of blocks from my house was a village with a six aisle A&P, a bakery, a drug store with a milk shake shop inside, a butcher shop, a gas station and a shoe shop. I remember the owner of the shoe shop would write the purchase date of our sneakers and shoes inside to see how long before we outgrew them. Nothing smelled better than the bakery in the morning.

Everything that mattered was within walking distance (for kids biking distance). These shops, the schools and the baseball field we lived at in the summer. My parents joked my bike came with a glove and a bat attached. Remember sliding the glove on the handle bars, then sliding the bat through the glove? We lived at the ball park in the summer. I laugh thinking about how kids save themselves now. We played all day before playing our LL games at night. I probably made over one hundred throws during the day (every day) before pitching another hundred pitches that night. I don't remember parents ever getting upset about losing and playing time. Maybe they thought LL wasn't worth the stress compared to WWII and the Depression.

When we weren't playing baseball at the field we were playing Strat-O-Matic baseball. Being an only child I also had many leagues I played by myself at night. The baseball season started in February when I could see the bag of new teams in the newspaper slot under the mail box. As soon as we came over the top of the hill and saw the bag, we sprinted the rest of the way home.

We used to sneak into the high school football games for sport. If we got in too early we walked out and did it again. If we got bored we let the cops see us coming over the fence for a challenge. Some of the best open field running I ever did was outrunning the cops at the field as a little kid. It was a game. The cops had to know we were going to get in. It wasn't about the money. It was fun.

I did graduate to higher crime though. As a high school kid growing up near Boston College we sneaked into their games. After the ice trucks delived a mountain of bags of ice to the parking lot, we would grab a bag, throw it over our shoulder, walk up to the gate and without making eye contact say "Concessions." Our faces were mostly blocked by the huge bags. The guard thought we worked there. We would get inside, through the ice bag and run like hell.

I remember going to a barber shop, not a salon or a Super Cuts. The same people worked there until they died. Frankie was my barber. My mother hated my dad taking me there. I learned a lot of new words from Frankie. There wasn't a sentence Frankie could stick a foul word.

In the winter time if we weren't indoors playing basketball, we were outdoors on the ice playing hockey or terrorizing the girls who couldn't skate as fast.

When I was younger, when asked where I was from I would say Boston (a suburb). Who wanted to claim they were from some hick town? As I got older, had kids and starting thinking back on some of the adventurous times as a little kid, I always added, "I lived in Portland before high school."

Notable residents:
Bebe Buell - Playboy centerfold and famous 60's R&R groupie
Liv Tyler - her daughter
Josh Chamberlain - Civil War
Patrick Dempsey - Grey's Anatomy
John Ford - director
Stephen King - writer
Linda Lavin - aka Alice
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - poet
George Mitchell - you'll be hearing from him this week
Judd Nelson - Breakfast Club (80's Brat Pack in Hollywood)
Quintin Porter - Panthers backup QB
Joanie Benoit (Samuelson) - Olympic gold medal winner
Brett Somers - remember the Match Game? ... Jack Klugman's wife

University of Southern Maine is a very good DIII baseball program. The head coach is in the College Baseball Hall of Fame. The field is in Gorham, but before the school was renamed it was University of Maine @ Portland-Gorham. Most importantly, Portland has lobster and lots of it. You can get a lobster roll at McDonalds.

The Subway concept was born in Portland, Maine. A corner store named Amato's made the Italian sandwich (known in Portland only as the "Italian") using fresh bread delivered daily from Botto's Bakery. A kid from South Portland goes to Fairfield College and starts an Italian sandwich cart to make money. The rest is, as they say, history. He never graduated from college. He didn't have time. He got a little busy. The only Subway I know of that ever went out of business had the balls to open across the street from Amato's.

Another person Wikipedia didn't have listed in notable residents is Bill Chinnock. You may not know who he is but you've heard of his band. Bill was born in New Jersey. He started a band with Clarence Clemons called The E Street Band. In one of the worst career moves of all time Chinnock turned the band over to a buddy named Bruce with the same look, aura and voice and moved to Maine for the quiet life in the seventies. But thank you for your decision Bill. You were the best club act I ever saw, again and again and again in the summer during college. We were Chinnock-heads. When his band played it was a big party.

Fun idea Fungo!

I wasn't born in Lexington, but have lived here almost all of my life. Lexington, KY is the second largest city in KY. Part of the beauty of a city the size of Lexington is that it's large enough to offer entertainment options, but small enough that it maintains a down home feel. It's rare that I go anywhere that I don't run into people that I know.

Lexington is known as the horse capital of the world. We'll host the World Equestrian Games in 2010 which is the first time ever the event has been held solely in one location. We obviously have horse racing available all year with live racing occuring during the seasons.

UK Basketball is the winningest program in history followed by NC not too far behind. (This might be the year they take that title!)

The weather here is a blessing IMO because we are able to enjoy all four seasons. It might be as hot as Alabama in the summer - as cold as Michigan in the winter. It's always a mixed bag.

We have a single A team, the Lexington Legends, which is an Astros afilliate. The facility is known as Applebee's Park and is a very accomodating and attractive minor league park. The state champion in baseball has come from Lexington for the last several years (with the exception of 2005 and Lex provided the runner up). Lexington will typically have one or two kids drafted each year. While baseball isn't the #1 sport here, it has a good base with HS support and interest.

In the Lexington surrounding area, you can find an abundance of colleges, distilleries, museums, horse farms... and we're about an hour away from Cincinnati and Louisville which offer even more to do - baseball and otherwise.

My Hometown? Well, I guess that would have to be Los Angeles. I was born in LA, and have lived in its 'burbs ever since (minus a college stint back east). I imagine just about everyone knows a lot about LA, but let me see if I can come up with a few things some may NOT know.

1. LA is spread out all over the place (duh, I think many may know this).

2. Downtown LA is pretty small and is mainly businesses and a financial district, courts and city seat. There are some great marts there - clothing, flower, fish, etc, where you can shop and get great prices. There are the arts and music there (like Disney Hall and the Chandler Pavilion for Opera), but also all around too.

2. There are really 2 (or even 3) LA's - downtown, westside (maybe 20 miles away or so? - not sure, I'm not good with distance, it's about a 20-25 minute drive without traffic), and maybe midtown. Much more to see and do on the westside and midtown. The main portion of LA County Museum of ART (LACMA) is midtown - so is the Kodak Theater where they hold the Oscars, and the Hollywood Bowl. Westside has great shopping and eating, Century City, Santa Monica, etc. and Universal City is just inside of the valley area

3. During a usual business week, I will see film trucks/crews maybe once or twice a week. I always stop to ask what they are making and it ranges from commercials to TV to movies. It takes a lot of people to film and it takes a lot of time to film.

4. I have been told that LA has the largest containerized international seaport in the world. How do they do that, you say, when LA is about 30 miles away from the water? There is a relatively narrow corridor (with other suburbian towns on either side) of land running from downtown to the water front. It is used by the railroad mainly, but it transports items/shipping containers to and from downtown and the port. It is also LA City property, and so is about 3/4 of the port area, so that is how the port remains in LA City.

5. The rest of the big stuff, many people already know. The newest sports facility is probably the Home Depot Center (s****r, tennis and velodrome), but we also have Staples (Lakers), Rosebowl (Pasadena, UCLA maybe USC?) and the Colliseum (currently USC). No one really uses to Forum (in Inglewood by the airport) or the Sports Arena (right next to the Colliseum) any more.

6. Many families in our area have one member who went to UCLA and the other to USC - go figure.

7. We have a ton of other 4 year colleges besides these two (not even considering great 2 year schools). I could not begin to name all of the 4 years, but my best guess would be about 20 or more within a 50 miles radius? Then another 10 within 100 miles? (Driving 100 miles around here is really nothing - many people drive 40-50 miles a day round trip to work.)

8. No thoughts of getting a national football team in the future that I have heard of.

Culver City, where Hollywood really was. Home of MGM studios.

Cecilia, Louisiana – God’s Country – In Between Lafayette and Baton Rouge – Would not leave if you paid me. Born there, will die there.

One School system – 4 schools separated by grades pre-k – 12th (also consisting of other small communities) Last school year, every sport made the state playoffs (football, baseball, softball, track (girls and boys), basketball (girls and boys), and volleyball. School has an above average rating. The kids you start school with, you finish with. Average 150 to 200 students per graduating class. One baseball park with 5 baseball fields always overflowing with kids

One Piggly Wiggly
Two Churches
Two Banks
One Hardware Store
One Café’

Perfect – quiet community, but only 20 to 35 minutes from big cities – east or west

I am putting up no vacancy signs, it seems a lot of people have found out about our little secret place and are moving in by droves. Stay Away!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Flint, Michigan
Birthplace of GM by Billy Durant; sit-down strike of '37' forced GM to recognize collective bargining rights of UAW.
Infamous for native Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" that tells the story of working class despair, 80,000 GM employees in 1980 and less than 15,000 today. Flint is also infamous for its frequent appearence on lists of most violent cities.
Rock-n-Rollers may appreciate that Grand Funk RR originated in Flint. Will Ferrell's next movie "Semi-Pro" is set in Flint.
MLB History: Flint is most proud of Jim Abbott. Other notables include Scott Aldred (once held MLB rcord for most appearences in a season w/o a decision), Steve Boros, Rick Leach, Joe Mays (I played HS ball with his dad at Carman), Merv Rettenmund (WS rings w/ Orioles and Reds), Jeff Hamilton (Carman HS, WS ring with Dodgers) and Herb Washington (MLB record for most runs scored w/o a plate appearence, formerly world's fastest human).
MSU's national championship in basketball put the spotlight on Flint with Peterson. Cleaves, and Bell.
Flint is rebounding and features four colleges (UM-Flint,Mott CC, Kettering Univ, and Baker College) with an enrollment of over 40,000 students.

My hometown is Margate, FL. Margate is a suburb of Pompano Beach, just northwest of Fort Lauderdale. Here we refer to it in terms of our large county which is Broward, I live in northwest Broward. I do not live near Miami and we are not afraid of hurricanes (for those who always ask) . My husband works in Hollywood and I work in West Palm Beach. We live here because it's between the two. It's also very beautiful, my backyard is the 18th hole on a golf course. Our area neighborhood actually consists of places you may have heard of, Coral Springs, Deerfield Beach, Boca Raton, we are 8 miles in land from the beach, it can take an hour to get there depending on the time of day.

We have everything here, in fact too much of everything. When we first came here in '76 there was nothing but in time so many have moved here and to the western suburbs (everglades), now people are migrating north. Now the trend is city redevelopment by the beaches is now booming, knocking down all of the old buildings and rebuilding bigger and better. Any building over 10 years is considered "old".

We often talk about moving a bit farther north, but our daughter is here and my mom and cousins and brother. Last spring while in Myrtle Beach, we decided we wanted to make a move, but son becoming a redbird changed that as the ST facility and High A is in Jupiter. So we put off those plans for now.

Pro football, pro basketball, pro baseball, pro hockey, minor league baseball, college sports, casino gambling on reservations, casino gambling on ships, ballfield on every corner, and golf courses upon golf courses. Lots and lots of money. Early bird specials, senior discounts.

We've seen and done it all, can't stand our traffic so we stay close to home on the weekends. In a few more weeks it will be season and will have to deal with the "snowbirds" until the spring. More traffic.

Many young families are now leaving south florida, it has become too expensive, tax bills are higher than mortgage payments. Even though there is no state income tax, it has become very difficult for young families to exist, as incomes are much lower here than most of the country. Many people bought who couldn't afford in the real estate boom hoping for a quick turnover, they have lost their homes. For some who are lucky you can get a very good deal here on a house or condo, but the banks aren't giving loans, they have lost too much. It's going to take years for our real estate to recover.

The weather is why people come, it is a great life if you are active and into the outdoors.

I went to camp in Maine, loved it, been to Michigan, family is from up that way, on our way to Omaha drove through KY (family in Louisville ) and Tennessee is beautiful and hope to someday return to Memphis.

My hometown is the corporate HQ of Google. As a result, the entire town is wired with free Wi-fi for anyone and everyone to use. Pretty nice.

Other than that, its your basic California town situated between two big cities. Has a WalMart, Starbucks (or two or three), McDonalds and all that other stuff along with some pretty good Chinese and Indian restaurants. Former Minnesota Vikings QB Joe Kapp owns a pretty good pizza joint here.

Don't know of anyone famous from my hometown other than my son's college baseball coach.

DJ Rodney Bingenheimer is from Mountain View.

quote:

Originally posted by justbaseball:
Has a WalMart, Starbucks (or two or three), McDonalds and all that other stuff along with some pretty good Chinese and Indian restaurants.

But not a single Skyline.