Column: Your home is not necessarily your hometown

Staff

Published Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Tim Engstrom, Pothole Prairie

There's no place like home.

Forgive me for talking about myself a bit here, but there's a point.

I visited my stomping grounds last weekend. I grew up on Twin Lakes in Calhoun County, Iowa, and went to school in Pomeroy, Iowa.

Twin Lakes isn't a town like it is here in Freeborn County. It's a place with homes and parks along the shore of North Twin. South Twin has a golf course but is mostly wildlife habitat. Skiers, kneeboarders, wakeboarders, tubers, cruisers, sailboaters and swimmers enjoy the waters of North Twin. Motorists and cyclists enjoy the road and bike trail around the lake, too.

Twin Lakes Grocery & Marina is still called “the little store” by folks there. The place retains its downhome, friendly feel, but the homes are bigger these days. Cabins are replaced by weekend mansions.

I understand why people have good-sized houses for their main home, but I don't see why they want a big one for their second home. I thought the point of getting away for the weekend was to spend more time with family or friends, not less.

In a lake cabin, you have less space, which means more time together.

With a lake mansion, parents can bring the kids and not have to spend time with them. Brothers and sisters don't have to share a room. Moms and dads don't have to listen to the video games. Sons and daughters don't have to listen to classic rock. Grandkids don't have to play cribbage.

Many people have two or three motorboats. One so the kids can go skiing and flirt with the swimmers at the state parks. One so the adults can go on a cruise along the shore. One for grandpa to go fishing.

Of course, part of living on a lake is complaining about all the changes, right?

I suppose I shouldn't complain. My folks no longer live there. They moved away in 1992, three years after I was out of the house, but I still know a lot of people there or have connections there. The parents of a boyhood friend have a cabin on North Twin, so he and I hung out there for the weekend. We swam. We visited neighboring cities. We visited some of my relatives in the area. We golfed at Twin Lakes Golf Club. We had a good time.

What was refreshing, though, was how everyone knew me and I knew everyone, no matter how many years I had been away. Calhoun is a small county. The 2000 census gave it a population of 11,115.

I lived and worked in the Pacific Northwest for five years. The last time I had been back to Twin Lakes was briefly for my father's funeral in 2004. Before 2001 I lived and worked in Ames, Iowa, and visited Twin Lakes more often.

People walking or driving wave at each other. No one locks their car doors. Windows are left open.

The city in which I lived in Washington state was Ellensburg. I knew a lot of people there, too. I'd say hello to people as I walked down the street.

Note I called Twin Lakes my stomping grounds, not my home. I'm from there, and it's a good place to be from.

That's because Albert Lea is my home, and I am proud of it. The more I get to know this city and its people, the happier I am to live here.

I imagine as time passes I will know many people here, wave as I pass on the sidewalk and root for the Tigers to beat the Packers.

It's nice to go back to where I grew up, but the lesson I learned this weekend is I hang my hat in Albert Lea.

Why?

It's hard to explain. Maybe I've turned over all the rocks at Twin Lakes, Iowa. I need to turn over new rocks, explore some new things. In Albert Lea, there's plenty new to discover for me, believe it or not.

Or maybe it's just plain nice to be close enough to visit but not live there. I'm trying not to eat fried food. I'm skinny, but skinny people need healthy hearts, too. My friend and I went to a restaurant in nearby Manson, and every item on the menu was fried.

Or maybe it's that many of my high school chums have moved away, too. When I visit Pomeroy, the people I hung out with don't live there, either.

Such is life.

I started the weekend thinking it was nice to visit my stomping grounds. I ended the weekend driving into Albert Lea thinking that it is good to be back home.

OK, enough of this. I'm going for a bike ride.

(Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom's column appears every Tuesday.)

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