I went to Facebook to review said notifications. The application, apparently tired of my incomplete profile, began to pepper me with questions: What high school did you go to? Where did you go to college? What is your home town?
The first two were easy: Alhambra High School, and the School of Hard Knocks. But the last one registered a big, fat, null pointer exception in my brain (sorry for the nerd reference - didn't know how to describe it in people terms).
After some thought, I entered "Sacramento, CA", and closed Facebook.
My dad apparently received a notification from Facebook that he had notifications pending, because he looked at my new Facebook profile entries later that same day. I don't think he much cared for my choice of home town. The following exchange occurred.
[Dad] I am puzzling over the the entry on Facebook that says your hometown is SACRAMENTO? Were you born at the age of nine?A little background. My dad was born in Southeastern Idaho, and lived there continuously (minus a two-year military stint) for 32+ years. Ask him his hometown and he'll say Roberts, Idaho, where he spent almost his entire childhood and where he lived until age 18. He's very proud of his hometown. I guess he thinks I should be proud of mine.
[Vulture] Meh. I lived in so many places that "where I was born" hardly seemed like a "home town". I could just as easily have picked Frederick.
[Dad] Whatever inflates your sails.
But..........what is my home town? I haven't a clue.
Yes, I was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho. But I lived a nomadic existence for the first half of my life. By the time I was 18, I had lived in 15 different residences in 9 different communities in 2 different states. I went to 9 different schools from Kindergarten through High School. Home town? How can I even begin to answer that?
I lived in Southeastern Idaho for 8.5 years. For those of you keeping score, that's nearly four score years ago. Is Idaho Falls (or Shelley, where my parents lived when I was born), my home town? I have no connection with Idaho Falls. I have few memories of Idaho, other than walking home from school and finding chin-deep snow in the driveway when I got home, or climbing large piles of snow to play. Snow memories. That hardly makes for a home town, does it?
I picked Sacramento primarily because I lived there twice, as a youngster (11-14), and again as a young adult (23-28). I picked it because Sacramento was the place where I first established my identity as a person, developing my love of music and sports and offbeat humor as a youngster there. I picked it because Sacramento is where I started my career as a computer programmer. I picked it because it had so much to do with defining me, a lot more to do with defining me than where I was born.
So you tell me. Am I wrong to say that my home town is Sacramento? Should I defer to the place I was born? Do I really have a say in the matter?
Inquiring minds want to know.
