What we don't see

Have you ever been in a strange town and looked an old classmate, distant cousin or friend you lost contact with?  You might meet up someplace or come over for dinner and have that pleasant conversation reminiscing the past and catching up on the present. After that I usually ask the question -what do you do around here for fun? It's more of a rhetorical question but I'm still surprised with how many people are lost for an answer.

As we settle into our life's routines the blinders go on. It's eat, sleep, work with two weeks vacation and as a rule the vacation has to be as far away you can possibly afford. You can live in a community for years and not have a clue of what exists only a few miles away. Once on a trip through Denver I looked up my old college roommate. We had a fun time at his favorite watering hole, a place called the Sarcastic Lounge but he was totally oblivious to the fact that Denver has a world class art museum only a few blocks away.

Over the last four years several friends and neighbors have been hit hard with the economic recession. Their big vacation has been replaced with the stay-vation. It does save money and it's more ecologically sound than flying overseas -and it's also a chance to discover what's practically in your own backyard. It's a shock what we don't see or hear around us because we don't believe there is anything special about the town we live in. Even New Yorkers I have know develop a bored and jaded attitude to their own homecity -just ask any lifetime New Yorker if they have ever been to the Statue of Liberty?

If you had to -I mean like if you became the new tourist director of your hometown what would you show people? If you were on vacation and could only go thirty miles from home, where would you go? People lose their sense of place when they stop looking at where they are. It's easy to get caught up in the nostalgia of the past or some hopeful expectations of the future and forget that moment to moment we live in the present.

Once again quoting Calvin and Hobbes "there is treasure everywhere" . Once I dated an archaeology student and she pointed out how rare it was to find anything gold or silver, that the biggest discoveries were the bits of more ordinary things.

Here are a few pictures of Pottstown PA, courtesy of David Pollack -a local photographer.

Pottstown was once an factory town with a steel mill and several heavy industries. Those industries are long gone and Pottstown is in the process of recreating itself..

Like David Pollack, I've taken the time to walk the streets of the town. In some ways Pottown reminds me of the type of town you would build for your Lionel Train Set. Pottstown even has the rail lines running parallel to High St (the main commercial district). Once Pottstown had a direct passenger line to Philadelphia 45 miles away.

Maybe it is human nature to put a premium on the foreign and exotic. It is like having visitors from distant country and all they want is cheeseburgers and Coke-a-cola. I certainly would not go to Paris and want a Royale with cheese.




Honestly I would like to know about your hometown. tell me where you're from and what it's like there. I would like to share what you say in a future posting.   

I was going include Sprinstein's My Hometown but it's kind of depressing. Haven't heard anything by the Super Furry Animals in a long time and here's Hometown Unicorn.