If "local" is not home address, where else is local for you?

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Mungeclimber

Trad climber

Nothing creative to say

Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 22, 2014 - 09:46am PT

What other spots would you think you might be a local at?

Spirit local
Vacation local
weekend local
family renunion stuck in lodi local

pics of said location welcome

clinker

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, California

Sep 22, 2014 - 09:49am PT

Beer at Bob's van, Pinnacles parking lot.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Sep 22, 2014 - 09:57am PT

I had a 'local' at the dermatologist's two weeks ago before he started hacking.

RyanD

climber

Squamish

Sep 22, 2014 - 09:58am PT

poseur local is a really popular thing I'm pretty sure. At least around here.

Never been a big fan of the term, especially when it is self referenced. Also feel like it gets tossed around & used here pretty loosely for no reason other than to sound cool. Which makes me wanna barrrrrrrffffffff!

eg:

"don't worry- I'm a local, it's ok for me to sh#t at the cliff but not for you or other out of towners!"

"I'm a local here now, just moved here last week & already got my seasons pass!"

"Hey I'm a local, can I get a locals discount?(worst)"

Brandon-

climber

The Granite State.

Sep 22, 2014 - 09:59am PT

I'm with DMT.

And North Tahoe.

A huge part of my soul still resides there.

Tadman

Mountain climber

Sep 22, 2014 - 10:05am PT

Yeti

Trad climber

Ketchum, Idaho

Sep 22, 2014 - 10:09am PT

Here's something I wrote about this issue for the local paper:

THE PURPOSE OF PLACE
by
Dick Dorworth

“To be rooted is perhaps the most important but least understood need of the human soul.”
Simone Weil

“Of all the memberships we identify ourselves by (racial, ethnic, sexual, national, class, age, religious, occupational), the one that is most forgotten, and has the greatest potential for healing, is place. We must learn to know, love and join our place even more than we love our own ideas. People who can agree that they share a commitment to the landscape/cityscape---even if they are otherwise locked in struggle with each other---have at least one deep thing to share.”
Gary Snyder

I have an old friend, now in his 80s, who has lived since he was a child on the same piece of land in a beautiful valley of a western state framed by mountains. I once wrote a letter of congratulations to him “For remaining rooted in place….There are few people in our culture who have this sort of good fortune, and having such deep roots has allowed you to grow in certainty from young agile boy with a smile looking for the next adventure to old, bionic-kneed man with a smile looking for the next adventure.” During the years from childhood when his home was nearly 10 miles outside town to the raising of his children to playing with his grandchildren that town has grown and surrounded and made a cityscape of the landscape of his youth. Still, his sense of place has allowed him to keep his priorities in order, his integrity intact and his sense of humor in operating shape. He has retired from a teaching career and has a sufficient but not extravagant lifestyle, and when a real estate developer offered him $14 million dollars for his property he turned it down. My friend said to me, “What would I do with $14 million? Move to Sun Valley and buy a condo? I like it here. I always have. This is my place.”
My friend’s wisdom is both informative and inspiring, as are Weil’s and Snyder’s.
A person rooted in place has a different experience and understanding of that place and thereby the larger world than one who is passing through to make the next step on the ladder of upward mobility, looking to crash as gently as possible after falling off that ladder, moving to the next job, following the restlessness of disaffection to the next layover or being pushed off place by rising prices. Place as used here is not to be confused with property and it need not be a particular dwelling or tiny or humongous parcel of land within either landscape or cityscape. Roberta McKercher’s place was Hailey, Idaho. Mary Jane Conger’s is Ketchum. John Muir’s was the Sierra Nevada. Another old friend, writer/photographer Peter Miller’s is Colbyville, Vermont. Jane Goodall’s is Tanzania. Han Shan’s was Cold Mountain. The Dalai Lama’s is the Potala, which he has not seen since 1959. And Gary Snyder wrote of his place, “I set up my library and wrote poems and essays by lantern light, then went out periodically, lecturing and teaching around the country. I thought of my home as a well-concealed base camp from which I raided university treasuries. We named our place Kitkitdizze after the aromatic little shrub.” There are those who are only at home and at peace with themselves (and committed and attuned to place) in the mountains, others on the sea and still others upon the rivers that connect them. For Wilfred Thesiger it was the southern Arabian desert. In the late 1940s he was one of the first Europeans to even see what was then known as the Empty Quarter, and he titled the book he wrote about his experiences and sense of the place “Arabian Sands.” One description of Thesiger’s work reads, “It is a book of touches, little things---why the Bedouin will never predict the weather (“since to do so would be to claim knowledge that belongs to God”), how they know when the rabbit is in its hole and can be caught. It is written with great respect for these people and with an understanding that acknowledges its limits. With humility, that is, which is appropriate. Fail the humility test, and the desert will surely kill you.” Today the Empty Quarter is filled with oil wells, Land Rovers and people passing through with a notable lack of sense of place or humility.
It might be said, Fail the humility test of sense of place, whether the place be a plot of land, a river, mountain, sea or neighborhood and it will surely kill at the very least some essential part of the soul.
If you have a sense of place, treat it with respect. If you don’t, start looking.

END

limpingcrab

Trad climber

the middle of CA

Sep 22, 2014 - 10:57am PT

Sequoia and Kings Canyon. When I go to other places in the mountains I feel like I'm visiting, but not when I go up there, feels like home.

I like being part of a place. Now that my son is 8th generation Tulare/Fresno county he can walk around the hills and see the trails his relatives built, places named after/by them, lakes stocked by them, roads built by them and other fingerprints on the land. No real value, but it's a cool feeling.

John M

climber

Sep 22, 2014 - 11:10am PT

I never got the whole sense of ownership of an area,

I lived in Wawona in the south end of Yosemite for 24 years. I worked there, played there, and volunteered there. If you don't know Wawona, its a small community of private property surrounded by national park. The park thinks and acts like it owns Wawona, so us "locals" have to remind them every once in awhile that we exist, and that we have a right to exist, and that we have needs. It sucks when every few years a new head ranger comes in and wants to change everything that we hold near and dear. Community should be a partnership. It often isn't.

Now I am just a hobo on the road. Living out of my car. But my heart is still in SloWona.

this just in

climber

north fork

Sep 22, 2014 - 11:44am PT

Ryan, I'm a local at Whistler cause I go there every other year for a week. So, can I get a discount at your restaurant?

NutAgain!

Trad climber

South Pasadena, CA

Sep 22, 2014 - 01:47pm PT

I've lived in a lot of places, and generally feel like an outsider. Even my childhood hometown(s) would be revisited as if by a stranger, seeing things at once familiar but from another life that cannot be reclaimed.

That said, my heart alights whenever I drive into Yosemite Valley and crane my neck about to admire the familiar and timeless features of my spiritual home for the last 10 years or so.

I've never made an effort to connect with the bridge crew or past/present camp4 denizens, but the place itself is big enough to welcome us all into the family no matter how we conduct our affairs with each other.

There are some particular spots on the east side, spots with no map marker and nothing to commend them beyond catching my eye in the midst of some past adventure, such spots that welcome me as an irregular regular when my adventures continue. Familiar landmarks bring comfort and tradition to pepper my new discoveries.

RyanD

climber

Squamish

Sep 22, 2014 - 02:39pm PT

Haha I'd give you a deal for sure Justin but it would be called something else on your bill besides "local discount".

this just in

climber

north fork

Sep 22, 2014 - 03:28pm PT

Ha Ryan if it's not a local discount I don't want it!

In all truth, I don't like it when any discount is asked for. See you in February, we will have a local beer together.

clinker

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, California

Sep 22, 2014 - 03:44pm PT

Rap bolters are granted permanent residency at Pinns. Buried on site. How local is that?

MH2

climber

Sep 22, 2014 - 04:08pm PT

The first neurons found in the central nervous system (not sensory or motor neurons) doing a job I could understand: place neurons.

Charlie D.

Trad climber

Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra

Sep 22, 2014 - 06:43pm PT

Great piece Dick D., humanity would be much better stewards of their place if they only knew it is their one and only place, the earth. Thanks for posting, much appreciated piece.

Charlie D.

ß Î Ø T Ç H

Boulder climber

extraordinaire

Sep 22, 2014 - 09:32pm PT

Once you leave it's over.
Break your sword in half and walk away.

neebee

Social climber

calif/texas

Sep 23, 2014 - 02:13am PT

hey there say, ... way long back, in south texas, i had lots of spots that our family 'was locals' at... :)

here, not sure...

perhaps, the old neighborhood walk area...
and... three food stores...
and--almost one restaurant, with my old boss lady... :)