There was this one mom and pop burger joint that had the simplest, most basic, super greasiest burgers but to this day they were the best burgers I’ve ever tasted. The place was tucked away in an alley and it was one of those “you have to be a local to even know this exists” places.
Also, having moved from a smaller town to a bigger city, I miss how close everything and everyone was. You wanted to go see someone, or go do something, it was always just a walk away instead of having to deal with all the hullabaloo of traffic and bus lines and yada yada.
- shelf-stable spinach
- quiet and splash-free porous asphalt
- as well as non-car infrastructure
- not needing to book a train 4 months ahead to get a fair price. I didn’t even know it was abnormal that I could show up to any station, tap my card, and board any train that goes to my destination
Not a single thing. Small town America sucks.
I’m from NYC. I miss good public transportation, museums, and nightlife.
Same. Add family in too, I miss em.
I miss the night sky. Chicago has too much light pollution to see the stars.
I miss eating frybread.
I miss the arid climate, the open sky, and even the wild weather of South Dakota.
And I miss the tight-knit concert scene of Sioux Falls, where a core group of people went to every. single. show. no matter the genre or location or age because it was all we had. Years later touring bands who came up Chicago would still recognize me as “that headbanging guy” even after I cut my hair.
I struggle to find anything. Maybe affordable housing, but that’s a thing of the past. It changed a lot in 20 years and everything that I may have been missing at some point is long gone.
The people there proud themselves in being a rural region with a small town surrounded by close villages, but everyone knows everyone and if you don’t fit socially with the others, mainly conservative, they will all bitch and talk about you in your back. Also, they take their cars to go literally anywhere. The next town is 7 km away, there’s a dedicated bike path, and they whine that “everything is so far away in the countryside that you absolutely need a car”. Yet, I moved in a metropolis where my work is 9 km away through dense urban landscape, and I can cycle there just fine.
I’m glad I left and I don’t really miss any of it. I don’t even like going back there. In fact, I prefer the services, and geographical features, of my new home.
The ocean, the mountain looking over the ocean, the friendly and warm people, the legality of weed, my climbing friends, my other friends, my mom, the freedom that comes with owning a car and having a valid driver’s license, the free availability of building materials for whatever hobby you may have, a medical system where you get to make decisions about your own health care and find doctors who actually give a fuck, the outdoor lifestyle, the non extortionate pricing of things.
Im sure I can find quite a lot more if I have it some thought.
Given that weed is legal there, were there a lot of people who grew their own weed or actually not that much? Or is that something people would just keep to themselves anyway?
I didn’t know many that grew it before being legalised, and the same for after. I know one of my old friends dad had a huge plantation and would just pay off the cops.
I was friends with a dealer so I rarely ever bought it myself before. Then they legalised it, you could have it, smoke it, transport it, but just not buy it. The loophole there is being part of a cannabis club. I left before they really became a thing though.
The Ocean
Walks along the sand and the sea front sidewalks were beautiful. I have so many pictures from that time and I look at them fondly, also because the dog we had passed away since then and he’s in a lot of the photos.
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The familiarity. I knew where everything was. Businesses, places to go for leisure, outdoor activities, beach, skiing, whatever. I knew streets, neighborhoods, demographics, etc. Friends, the people I grew up with, where people lived… The very essence of what “roots” are.
I’ve moved so many times that I still don’t know 95% of the street names where I’ve lived for the last 5 years. I have to look online for businesses to see what is available and take a guess which one might work. Eating out someplace new is a risk, who knows if it’s any good.
That all said, leaving has presented far, far more opportunity and done better for me than staying in my hometown ever would have.
But I’m tired of moving. I need roots again. I miss that.
i’ve lived in the same place for 10 years and don’t really have ‘roots’ here.
i think that’s more if you live with/nearby family. a lot of people won’t move because of family, even if they hate where they live.
Im from tulsa. When i was 21 my brother died. I moved away 2 weeks after the funeral. I cant go back there. Too many memories 😪
I spent a year living in Tulsa on south gilete ave, the only redeeming quality was the sonic like 6 blocks away.
At the moment, I can’t even think of anything I miss that would still be there in my home town. The place has changed so much that the only thing it shares with the town I grew up in is its name. So, in a contemporary sense, I’d have to say I don’t miss much anymore.
If I could go back in time, I’d love to take another walk through the woods I used to play in when I was a kid. They’re gone now, cut down for a factory that’s no longer in business.
Also, I think it would be neat to go do my grocery shopping and run into my aunt and cousins or an old friend I haven’t seen in awhile. It was a small town, so it was almost guaranteed if you were shopping in town, you’d run into people you know and like.
The memories, and not much else.
I think if you stay in a place your whole life, you don’t really get how much it changes. Go away for a few years and come back, it’s almost like a new place sometimes.
Every now and then I go on Google Maps, satellite view, and look at places I used to live. You see trash piled up everywhere. Cars everywhere. Three or four cars to a driveway in what used to be single family homes.
I know a lot of people who still live there. They haven’t changed at all. Even as the trash piles up around them, they still think they’re living in paradise. Especially now that weed’s legal there. I think the government just said “fine, smoke a jay and delude yourself with our blessing.” Shit should be legal everywhere, at least as long as more dangerous shit like cigarettes and alcohol are. I don’t partake in any of it, I think it’s all shit, but I think people should be free to do shit that harms no one. Maybe more limits on alcohol since drunk driving kills so many, and the problems caused by alcoholics… but I wouldn’t push it.
Oh yeah, the weather’s still pretty nice there. Temperate. But you couldn’t pay me enough to live there now.
The food and the people
nothing. where i grew up was a hellhole of miserable people.
now i live in a major city and life is pretty great
I grew up in a small town in rural Scotland and now live in a city in England. So I miss the fields, the sea, the hills, the forests, the food, the people, the closeness, the pace of life, the community.
