Barbara J. Hamby

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No Home Town

Having left California when I was a child, I don’t often think of it as my home state, nor do I think of any of the towns where I lived as a hometown.

In 1999, I won an “Excellence Award” in a contest titled “A Brief Letter from the Heart,” sponsored by a Japanese Cultural Foundation. The subject of the letter was to be, “My Home Town.”

Because I grew up in many towns in three states, I wrote about not having a real hometown and my sense of loss caused by that lack of continuity.

Nonetheless, on our recent trip through California, I felt some pride in the glorious scenery and the warm sunshine that embraced us.

My adult life has been spent in the Pacific Northwest and I love it here. I often declare our natural wonders “the best in the world.” The Columbia Gorge, the Oregon beaches, and our mountains and lakes are sensational.

While I enjoy traveling and seeing other parts of the world and how people live there, the Pacific Coast of the good old U.S.A. is where I want to stay.