jvj

"Miles".

That's the name of the town I grew up in as a kid. 'Nuff said : ).

My hometown is Sacramento California.

My hometown is the current residence of the "Governator" Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Sacramento is also the capitol of California, therefore it is home of one of the most corrupt governments in history.

Since California is ranked at # 7 for "largest economies in the world LINK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... l_GDP#2005

and yet according to our state legislature we can barely afford to pay teachers to teach our kids.

my Home Town is famous for having amongst it`s population one of the very few people who have won this comp[ ]

I grew up in a small South African town called Middelburg, which is located in the Mpumalanga province, formerly known as the Eastern Transvaal. Middelburg was established in 1864 as a halfway point between Lydenburg and Pretoria, on the banks of the klein Olifants River. Unfortunately, its only claim to fame is rather depressing. Over 1300 women and children died there in a concentration camp established by the British during the 2nd Boer War.

Transvaal - Afrikaans meaning "Beyond the pale river"
Mpumalanga - Swazi meaning "Place where the sun rises"
Klein Olifants - Afrikaans meaning "Small Elephants"

Always loved tranlations.

my home town is Omak Wa, USA famous for the Omak stampeed and suiside race. http://www.omakstampede.org/

my home town of Marshfield WI is famous for nothing, as you can tell by the name it has a marsh on three sides and and a field on one. The only thing that Marsfield mite be famous for is the most bars per square mile. I go home about 4 times a year to visit family and I say the same thing after every trip and that is, the best veiw of Marshfild is the one in your rear veiw mirror

Well Julie some people don't like to think we are only famous for this, but it is a big one....lol Milwaukee is my home town and Beer made us famous. Some people would like to think it is our Bratwurst, Any tail-gator here knows you need to have a Bratwurst on the grill, either by Klements or Usinger. There's many more, but I say the many choices of good Beer.
Inkoman/Curtis

It's hard to think of a better claim to fame than beer. That's everyone's favourite town right there!

Hang on, wasn't the Fonz from Milwaukee?

-Paul

My hometown is Vicksburg, Mississippi though I now live in London. Vicksburg surrendered to Grant during the Civil War on July 4, 1863. Because of that, the city did not celebrate the Fourth of July until after World War II.

Interesting sidenote: Vicksburg now survives mostly on the tourism generated by its Civil War National Park and Riverboat Casinos.

Thanks,
Droopy

Yup, the Fonz was indeed from Milwaukee. I totally forgot about that in the midst of all the beer. I also forgot about Unsingers..... Lord I do love that place.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

My hometown, Bartlesville Oklahoma, is the site of the first oil derrick in the US (unless, of course, you count an attempt in Pennsylvania that amounted to nothing). This well was named after the builders daughter, Nelly Johnstone. This town is also the birthplace of the affluent Phillips family, which you may know from ConocoPhillips, formally Phillips 66.

My hometown is Schlüchtern (Germany, Europe ). It lies in Kinzig's valley where Napoleon passed through with his troups several times on his way from and to Hanau or Frankfurt. In 1813 it so happend that he spent a night in the local monastery. The room the legend says he slept in was, actually, one of the rooms I attended classes most often during High School. Maths right on Napoleans long faded footprints.

My hometown, Joplin, MO, is probably most famous for the shootout between police and Bonnie and Clyde. Apparently in the 1930's they were staying in an apartment above a garage when the police got a tip that there were bootleggers staying there. A shootout ensued ending with Bonnie and Clyde escaping and two police officers dead.

One other interesting tidbit would be Billy Cook. Billy Cook killed several people over a two week period in 1950. He even killed an entire family(children and a dog included) after forcing them to drive him across several states. Apparently he is buried across the street from my house in Peace Church Cemetery. We get all kinds of weirdos looking for the grave/ghost of Billy Cook. The grave site is unmarked. Though, he has relatives that are also buried there and in fact their graves are the only ones that are even taken care of nowadays.

Good to see so people from so many different places! I discovered Book of Words about 12 years ago when I was living in a bit of a cespit of a town on the coast of the Namib desert, called Walvis Bay (translated into Whale Bay). The whales were long ago hunted out of the area by evil European whalers.

Although travel guides will tell you about the beauty of the world's oldest desert meeting the cold Atlantic sea, where the welwitschia plant is a living fossil thousands of years old, then don't mention the truly unique fragrant air. For about six months of the year, during fishing season - fishing and tourism being primary industries along with uranium mining - locals are treated to the gut-dissolving odour of burning fish.

Nobody tells you this when you first arrive in Walvis, as locals enjoy watching newbies choke and gag at the unrelenting stench. Walvis Bay in the fish meal producing capital of the world, if http://www.namibian.com.na/2003/june/na ... 2CE4C.html is to be believed. Having moved to the town when I was 12, I never grew used to it the way that other kids had. While nobody ever truly gets used to the smell, you do learn to manage your gag reflex.

I remember with fondness taking my English boyfriend to Africa for the first time a few years later, and taking him to Namibia. Though not in fishing season, the factories seem to have been fired up for some strange reason - nothing serious enough to engage the olfactory senses of anyone who'd spent a couple of years there. He went green. And such is the only pleasure of locals, waiting for for visitors to grace the town with their presence when the breeze is blowing in from the wrong direction and watching them faint in the onslaught of putrid air.

But that's not strictly my hometown, which is the city of Durban, South Africa. Durban is home to the world's biggest sugar silos, handling 800 tons of sugar in a day, or some such large figure.

The bunny chow is local dish that claims to be the oldest takeaway meal (though the Cornish and their pasties would probably have something to say to that) A half or quarter loaf of bread, with centre scooped out, filled with mutton, chicken or beans curry, then with the scooped out bread placed back on top, the sauce soaking into the bread. Occasionally served with a grated carrot and raisin/chili salad. Fingers are the only way to eat them. Very messy, and very good! Cutlery will only get you laughed at. Nobody knows why they're called bunnies, though the chow part is self explanatory. Some believe it it a bastardization of the name Banhia, a family who sold the dish from their restaurant.

It is thought to have originated among the Indian immigrant workers who would used the hollowed out loaves to take their meals with them to the sugar plantations. Ghandi would have had them when he worked as a lawyer in Durban in the late 19th/early 20thC. The poor working conditions that he witnessed kicked off his campaigning for civil rights.

So who says that sugar is a bad thing.