Home Town

Home Town Thoughts
by John-Brian Paprock

Until recently, I had no hometown. I realized recently that I always felt like a visitor, and not always a welcomed visitor. Now I understand some of this was an attempt to deal with a childhood of constant change and trauma.

By the time we arrived in Madison, Wisconsin, when I was 11 years old, we had lived in four states, two countries, five metropolitan areas, 14 addresses - and have been to 10 different schools. I guess the large metropolitan areas of Mexico City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, and San Francisco all had an impact in my life, but Chicago and Los Angeles had the greatest. I lived most of my life in Madison - over 40 years.

Locations in Madison where I lived as a pre-teen and teenager in the 1970s. All the buildings were still standing in 2014. 

As a young adult, I chose to live in New York City, a profound experience that was the only time as an adult that I had lived away from Madison, Wisconsin, until I moved to Minneapolis in 2014.

Places in and around Madison where I lived as a young adult into 2013.

 

It is a profound sense of stability, even though I moved from Madison, it remains my hometown with all the memories, the ups and downs, the special nooks and crannies, that make a hometown different from any other place on the planet. I am grateful for my hometown - all the lessons and all the blessings that have contributed to the man I am today.  God bless Madison, Wisconsin.