In a steaming rush of smoke and soot, the FTTW Trainwreck of Thought comes barreling back from vacation. White knuckled, we hang on for dear life because, hey, who knows where the hell this thing is headed? Certainly not us, the humble passengers of this monstrosity.

This week everyone is talking about their hometowns: why it sucks, why it rocks, why they still insist on calling it 'home'. It's not just where you went to high school, it's not just where you kicked around on that vacant lot and got tetanus that one time, it's not just that place where your parents hang out (except for Ernie), it's The FTTW Home Town Trainwreck!

Dave in Texas - Farmers' Branch, Texas
Where I grew up we had a very nice municipal jail.

First rate. Really.

Timmer - Boise, Idaho
Boise Idaho. Not Iowa. And it's pronounced Boycee. There's no "Z" in Boise. Actually, if you want the proper French pronunciation it would be Bwah, but no one here much remembers the French much less wants to call it Bwah. I mean really, Bwah? Sounds like you're blowing a kiss with peanut butter in your mouth.

Le Bois is French for The Trees. Back before it was settled, the folks who first explored this area looked down into the valley and pointed toward the river and said, "Le Bois." The trees. Since there were no other trees anywhere near here at the time...other than in the mountains to the North, it was kind of a big deal.

Boise is a nice, relatively small town. People like the small town feel. Lots of people have moved here from Southern California over the past 15 year because they wanted to get away from L.A. and the huge city feel. Then they went and built strip malls and everything they missed about L.A. and sort of mucked it up. You really don't want to keep your California license plates much longer than you have to here. It might get your ass kicked in the wrong places.

Boise is famous for its potatoes. We like that. People think Boise and they think potatoes. They don't think about shopping, or art, or culture or small shops that sell cool stuff, or good coffee shops, or river rafting or camping close buy or small towns in the mountains close by. They just think potatoes and mostly write us off. This is a good thing.

Now...if we can just get the Californians to get tired of what they've done to the place and make them move a bit further East, say to Wyoming, then it would be even better.

Courtney Rau - The 'Wood, Massachusetts.
My town, the one I'm from and still live in, is FREAK MECCA OF THE UNIVERSE, due to the high percentage of townies, and group homes for developmentally delayed adults. Who all live in a strange sort of harmony.
Oh, and the Lewis Burger.

You know you want it...

Mr. Knowsomeofit - Oakland, California
I live in Oakland. Do I really need to say more? I mostly like it because white people are afraid of it.

Here's one of the reasons I love Oakland: ------>

I took that picture less than a half a mile from my house, in the middle of a city that has a reputation for being a blighted urban nightmare. I love my town for its secret, hidden beauty.

Deb - Burlington, Ontario, Canada
Home to... Ummm- a festival called "The Sound of Music Festival" AND it has nothing to do with the musical! It's actually North America's biggest FREE Music Festival.

No one who lives in Burlington actually goes.

There are also two malls and at least 200,000 residents who commute to Toronto every day for work.

Slogan?!? "We're not Hamilton or Toronto!"

Jo - Rutland, Vermont
I was born and came back to a wonderful little town called Rutland, Vermont. If you grew up and never left Rutland – it’s the place everyone wants to escape from because you run out of things to do living here. If you've moved away and come back, like I have, Rutland is the best place to live. It’s beautiful scenery (God's country) all year 'round. The people are generally nice and friendly. Always willing to help if you ask.

There is always something going on to attract tourists, from the Rutland Farmer's Market in the downtown park every Saturday and Tuesday to the free concerts in the Uptown park every Sunday and Wednesday. To me, Rutland is one of the few places in the world that one can look at and, within a month, say "I love this place. Its amazingly beautiful and I never want to leave."

Jim Sells - Cleveland Tennessee
Cleveland, Tennessee, the home of the Church of God(Cleveland) and the Church of God of Prophecy, which was formed by one of the founding fathers of the Church of God after he was impeached from the church. Both have gone on to grow into large denominations with members worldwide.

It also was featured in a "60 Minutes" segment in the Seventies that referred to it as the "Odometer Rollback Capital of the World". A cousin of mine was involved in that and went to Brushy Mountain State Prison (home of James Earl Ray) for a stretch. He was released and pressured to talk by the IRS which threatened to seize virtually all he owned. He was killed in broad daylight next to one of the busiest roads in Polk County, Tennessee, shot in the head multiple times with a hunting rifle. End of story.

Where I come from is growing into a metro area but it is fucking weird, no matter how large it becomes.

Ernie - Webster, Massachusetts
I grew up in the fabulous town of Webster MA, also known as the place where they still think mullets are in style, also known as the place I go only to visit my parents.

Webster is famous for its lake which has a very, very long name, supposedly the longest place name in the US. Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. (Ed. Note: Yes, that lake name is spelled correctly. We checked.)

Wow that's exciting.

Webster is also famous for, at one time, having more bars and liquor stores per capita than any other town in Massachusetts. They also have an abundant number of pizza shops and gas stations as well as two Dunkins and a bowling alley, though it should be noted that most towns
in Mass have at least two Dunkins at the minimum.

At one time Webster used to have a mini-golf but they tore it down and made it into a parking lot because everybody knows that parking lots are way more fun than mini-golf. Plus, it gave the bored townie cops something to do (continually kicking kids out of the parking lot).
Loitering / skate-boarding / bmx-ing / sitting in your car listening to the radio - only trouble can come from these insidious activities...

When asked about the dearth of recreational outlets for kids in Webster, one town official was famously quoted as saying, 'There's lots of things for kids to do in Webster. They can go bowling or go out of town.'

Awesome.

Johnny St. Clair - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
my city is the only one my family has known since they got off the boats
my city doesn't have as much pollution as it used to
my city has the best weed spots
my city has the most number of non-ironic mustaches per capita in the fucking world
my city has career prostitutes
my city has prime catfishing
my city has the friendly neighborhood transvestite who pushes a shopping cart around the block
my city has hills - alot of them
my city has the Ice Cream Man who still sells his shit out of the back of a pickup truck
my city has Dirty Larry and he'll buy the socks you're wearing for $20
my city has its own brew made from local river water
my city has its own cornball lingo
my city will kick your ass, steal your best girl, and eat the last muffin
my city got it for cheap
my city is fucking sweaty right now

I ain't got no plans to leave. Just ask my P.O.

Turtle - Sacramento, California
I guess really the town I did spend most of my time in was Sacramento, CA. Sacramento was cool. It's the kind of town that everyone ended up in. People from all over Californina, for some god knows reason, ended up in Sacramento when they:

A) Wanted to quit drugs

B) Wanted to start doing new drugs

It was like the musical detox of Northern California. When you are in a band and you either quit or got thrown out for doing too many drugs, you came to Sacramento. So you had all these AA's filled with people from bands you knew who "just didn't want to talk about what happened."

We also had all these dive bars with dollar drafts and cheap methamphetamine which really didn't help the situation much.

We also had "Lil Joe's".

You had some balls if you ate there. If the food didn't kill you, a stray bullet from the crips fighting over drug turf would.

Michele - East Meadow, Long Island, New York
I call it Hotel California. People never leave here. It's like there's a force shield around the town. My kids go to school with the kids of my childhood friends. Everyone lives two blocks from their parents. People TRY to leave, but keep coming back.

It's a nice place. Good schools, nice lawns, low crime.

What are we famous for? Hmmm.

Part of the movie the Hot Rock was filmed here. You might not remember that stellar Paul Newman movie about a diamond heist.

We do boast a serial killer, Joel Rifkin - the man who made putting hookers in your trunk famous.

We are also the hometown of Criss Angel, that magician I want to drop kick. When he was younger, he lived a few houses down from my ex brother in law. He used to come over and entertain our kids with magic tricks.

That's about it. We're a town of strip malls. There are THREE Dunkin Donuts in East Meadow. THREE! We also have the county jail here. Located directly across the street from the high school. There's some suburban planning gone wrong for you.

Josh - Heath, Ohio
I grew up in Heath, Ohio. There is absolutely nothing of note about my town. Couple of failed NFL players, buncha meth, and my high school is on a road that used to be called Lover's Lane.

However, the county that Heath is in can claim John Holmes as an alumnus. Which county is that, you ask? You won't even believe me, but it's ... Licking County. Hand to God.

Joel Caris - Portland, Oregon
I was born in Redding, California, but left there when I was four. So not there. The town I spent the most time growing up in is Vancouver, Washington. But not that interesting. Screw that.

Let's go for Portland, Oregon, which is where I live now.

What's Portland known for? Well, everyone thinks rain. And it does rain, but it's way overblown. For those of you who don't live in a place where it rains a lot, though, I guess it is weird to show up here and listen to people debate what kind of raining is going on today. Is it misting, sprinkling, is it a light rain, a heavy rain, a shower? We're like the eskimos here with all our different terms.

What else? I believe Portland has the highest number of strip clubs per capita of any city in the country. Yep, we love our strip clubs here. You can't walk down the street without seeing one. Hell, it's hard not to walk down the street without finding yourself in one, purposefully or not.


Also, full nudity with alcohol.

If you're a basketball fan, we have the number one pick and the opportunity to choose between Oden and Durant. So suck on that, Boston.

Oh, and it's just a damn cool city. It's small, but it still has a whole lot of culture. We've got Forest Park, which is the biggest park within city limits in the country (or maybe world.) In general, there are tons of trees, lots of green spaces. The city's liberal as all shit, which is certainly nice from my perspective. It's quite easy to get around without owning a car, especially if you have a bike. Certainly not up to the level of New York, but I'm thinking of dumping my car and just saving the money next year when I start attending PSU and don't have to leave the city for work.

We're littered with $3 theaters that have fair-priced concessions, pizza, beer, burgers, couches, old and comfy and real chairs, and 21 and older only. There are even a couple places you can catch first-run movies for $6.

Finally, probably the best thing about this town is the beer. So much beer. But much more importantly, it's quality beer. There is so much great quality beer being brewed in this town, it's ridiculous. It's a borderline alcoholic's nightmare and dream all twisted together in night after night of spending too much goddamn money at the local pub. And there are great bars and pubs and taverns and classy joints with good food and dives with even better food EVERYWHERE and it's fucking great. And I've had to seriously cut my regular monthly expenses since moving here just so I could afford all the beer I've been drinking and good food I've been eating. Which reminds me, there's a lot of great fucking food here, and a lot of great ethnic food all over the place. Thai abounds, Ethiopian is well-represented (and delicious), and for every strip club, there's a Lebanese place, as well.

FUCK, I love this city.

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