the hometown boogie
Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 1:00AM in Toni McGee Causey
"Where are you from?"
It's an innocent, easy question, right? Drives me nuts to answer it, and now, it's just gotten more complicated.
I'm "from" a small town just northeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana (Kinder), if what the questioner wants to know is "where were you born?" But I didn't live there long. I lived briefly in Lake Charles and then Breau Bridge and then Baton Rouge and then Zachary and then back to Baton Rouge (for a long time) and now, I divide my time between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
I just say, "Louisiana" to make it easy, but someone always ends up asking questions to try to narrow that down (if they're from here).
Less difficult, up until a couple of months ago, was "what's your hometown?" and that was pretty easy: Baton Rouge. It's where I've lived for 29 years. It's the home of the LSU Tigers (not that I've ever mentioned that here) and there are tons of good people and great food. I lamented to my oldest son, Luke, that there wasn't that much to do there and he listed off a couple of dozen things that there were to do, from the symphony to the Little Theater productions (which are, frankly, quite good), so I think my only real problem with Baton Rouge is that it's much easier for me to be a hermit there and not participate.
The last couple of months, though, we've been in New Orleans. The move was supposed to be temporary because it's work-related, but we do love it here, and after the job is done, who knows? We're in the Quarter, where it's almost impossible to be a complete hermit, and that's even when you're not into the drinking/night-life.
There are several dozen things to do and see all within walking distance, or a very short drive, which is appealing. [Just last Sunday, for example, we had lunch at a local cafe and then wandered down Royal, meandering into art galleries. One of the managers of the galleries showed off some of their very expensive originals that they keep locked in a back room.
Carl admired his guitar, and before we knew what was happening, we were seated on a sofa and he was jamming out old Johnny Cash songs, playing for us like we were a room of a thousand: so much energy and enthusiasm, and talent, and when it was over, it felt like an event.]
Most of the locals don't really hang out at the Quarter, unless they live here (like us), so you get a pretty fun assortment of tourists from all over the world. It's a fascinating cross-section for a people-watcher/writer, and fun for eavesdropping for ideas. (Oh, the ideas....)
What I like best about the Quarter, though, is not the noise or the food or the architecture - 
well, it's all of those things combined - but what I like best are the very early mornings when dawn is cracking open the sky over the old buildings, some which have been here since the early 1800s, and you get to see the real Quarter - the people who work here, prepping for the day ahead. Someone pressure washing a sidewalk, someone else setting up a restaurant, delivery men shouting to each other the news of the day as they pass, a few drunk tourists trying to toddle home, doing that 'I'm not really drunk' walk where they stare straight ahead, zombie-like, trying to fool everyone and failing exponentially. Living here is a bit like living out behind the big top of a circus, where you see the equipment piled up, the magicians prepping the show for the night to come, where musicians are winding down and counting their tips and the dancers and bouncers are warily walking to their cars.
It's an interesting place, for a writer. I'm not sure it's home, and N'awlins is much more than the Quarter -- the locals will be quick to tell you that -- but it's fast becoming another hometown for me. We only half-way joke that we wish we could do this in several other major cities--have a job that would take us there for a year or so. There are a dozen places I'd love to live, love to know it as intimately as one would a home town.
Does a home town define us? Or do we, in some way, define it?
What if it were wiped away? New Orleans almost was, during Katrina. Some of it has come back fine--some will be gone forever. It's grown again from the mud and the debris and stood proud and even won the SuperBowl... but everywhere I go, there are still scars. Empty storefronts. Rotting houses. Roads that are in desperate need.
And then I look at the images coming in from Japan, and I am rendered speechless. Heartbroken. I cannot look at this, without choking up. Imagine if everything you knew was gone. So much of your own family--your history--your place in this world: wiped out. It is astonishing, the fortitude the Japanese people have shown in the face of this destruction and I am in awe of them. In awe of the firefighters and men who are trying to keep the nuclear power plant cool. The men who you know... you know, despite claims otherwise... are going to have practically committed suicide by going into that plant every day to try to prevent it from melting down. They're saving lives. And all those other people, digging through the rubble, counting bodies. It's devastating.
What if my own home town--my sense of place--had been ripped from me? Would I still be me?Would I be the same? What would you miss the most? (besides the amenities)
What do you love about your home town? Do you have more than one to claim? Have you moved around a lot? Enjoyed it? Hated it? And where would you stay put, if you could only choose one place on earth?
Baton Rouge, NOLA, New Orleans, Toni McGee Causey, home towns, hometown 
Reader Comments (20)
Then sometime in my late twenties we all moved inland, to the place where we and later I mainly raised our children. A town surrounded by farm land and virgin rainforest. Lately I've been chafing against whatever held me here...so now I'm semi-living in the city of my birth. Finding new cafes, learning new ways to get about. I'm looking forward to organising a canoe trip on the river at night some time.
I haven't moved around all that much. Each of the towns I've lived in are with an hour and a half driving distance of each other. I think the one thing they have in common is that I can always seem to find the wild places within. Not the crazy night places, although I seem to be able to find that easy enough, more the places where I can feel the elements, and not so much the fumes. I don't have some urge to be only in one place. I feel a bit twitchy thinking about what it would be like to only live in one place...
As far as Japan, and those who lost everytning, almost too painful to think about. I admire their strength, resilency, going on with their lives despite the pain of loss and deprivation. They are heroes, every last one of them, inspirational people whose courage is a message to us all.
Thanks for the post!
But I wouldn't mind moving, building my life somewhere else. My only real attachment to this place is my mom and my brother (I won't even say family, because I'd leave my father and even my sister behind and not actually miss them -- I barely see them anyway), and, with them, I'd go anywhere. You see, I'm very easy to please. When I lived in Reno, I missed two things: mom and brother (that's being one thing) and Brazilian food. So, you put me in a city that is big enough to have malls 10 minutes from each other, and I'm game. Malls and restaurants are the only essentials in a city to me. It's pretty much all I ever do, where I ever go.
Sounds superficial, I know. Maybe I am a shallow person. I'm not into History or Heritage, I'm into Food and Shopping. Umm... I'm gonna go hide now...
I've also lived a bunch of places. Someone asked me yesterday where my accent was from and I responded that it's a mongrel hybrid of all kinds of different places in the UK.
I weep for Japan, but feel emotional overload at the news coverage. It feels like it's picking over their tragedy with an almost salacious glee.
And where do I feel at home? With Andy. At the moment, home is a hotel room in rainy Sacramento.
Where am I from? If I told you the name of the city, you would shudder and step back a pace, look away fearful I might have a gun or blade tucked under my jacket. But I am from before that, before a bite was taken from the apple.
I have a couple of homes. One is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I've been for 35 years (and doing that math is sort of shocking - it sure doesn't feel as if that much time has passed). The other is in northern Idaho, in the town where I did most of my growing up. I rediscovered it a few years ago, and completely surprised myself by choosing to grow new roots there; when I left back in the day, I would've bet good money that I'd never be back.
The other place that really feels like home to me is Paris. I have no idea how it happened, but from the first moment I set foot there, I was just completely comfortable. The bummer is that I just can't get there often enough.
I did move around a lot when I was younger, and didn't much care for it. I like roots, but I also like being in different places. So it's nearly impossible for me to pick just one place to stay put. In my perfect world, I'd spend quality time in my two existing places, plus New York and Paris. And as soon as I win the lottery, that's just what I'll do :-)
I said, "Um, well, we're staying over at the motel."
She scowled a little, then said, clearly enunciating, "No. Where. Are. You. From?"
"Oh, we're from California."
"Ooooohhhhhh," said all the little girls, and they ran off.
I love Louisiana.
The place I grew up in has changed beyond recognition over the years. The massive tree that I used to escape my sister in to read for hours was knocked down to make way for a car park. One branch of the creek was similarly filled in as part of this car park. Over the years the mudflats were gouged out and evened out then lined with stone and wire on the remaining part of the creek. However I still have years of memories of what it felt like wild. For which I am truly grateful.
I think a place where you feel at home is transferable. I felt very much at home in the swamp around a lake in Central Florida. Also the architecture, mobs of tourists and sea breezes evoked a feeling of home to me in Key West.
Maybe it's easier for me to hold onto memories as the transition to the land was gradual. Hurtful yes, but without loss of life. That to me is the base line. A place can reshape or rebuild, but people lost ...truly heart breaking.
Toni thanks again for another thought provoking topic. It's been interesting seeing what evokes a sense of home for everyone.
I was born in Salem, Massachusetts, but I usually say I'm from Marblehead. Although I've lived in many places across the country, that is where my heart is.
I was born in Salem, Massachusetts, but I usually say I'm from Marblehead. Although I've lived in many places across the country, that is where my heart is.
You 'Rati are beautiful.
If I missed anything, I think it would be comfort. Not amenities, but knowing where everything is, knowing people in town, the contentment that goes with familiarity.
Now, this little neighborhood in a Denver suburb is home. I can tell I'm settling in because I'm paying attention to local politics more, I've got great neighbors I can depend upon in a pinch, and I know all the back ways to get to things. But it's more about people than place.
But I also have an odd connection to small towns in the middle of Illinois, where my parents hail from. We used to spend part of every summer, as well as every other Christmas, driving there, staying on the farms that my parents each grew up on. I was not a farm kid, but for a few weeks here and there, I walked fields, bottle fed calves, and knew the smells of alfalfa, tractor exhaust, and cow manure. The air is thick with humidity, the nights dotted with fireflies, and my ears ring with katydids. Maybe it's genetic memory, but some part of that will always be home, too.
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