Everyone

Needs a Hometown
By Jane Gilgun

Bridge at Lake Harriet Peace Garden, Minneapolis, MN, USA

he TV show Cheers was a hit for a reason. The tagline was where everyone knows your name. Everyone needs such a place. For me as a child, everyone knew my name in my neighborhood, school, and church. I felt known. When I went away to college, I began to feel comfortable when other people knew my name and I knew theirs. I feel comfortable when I feel known. Its been the same every place I have lived since. When I am part of a group where people know my name, I am comfortable. When I am in a group where people may know my name but do not seem to know me or care to know me, I am uncomfortable. Ive been thinking about this for a while. A few weeks ago, I heard on Facebook from someone I didnt know. She had an unusual last name. I thought she had to be related to the family of that name whom I knew in my hometown of Peace Dale, RI. I asked her whether she were related. I told her that the mother of that family was a good friend of my mothers. They went shopping together every Saturday for years. They went to bingo. Hearing from her triggered memories of that family, not only distant but recent memories of how kind and open and welcoming they were. How they respected other people. The sons of my mothers friend are Pete and Mike (not their real names.). Everyone knows Pete and Mike. They are at the bowling alley every day for coffee and a chat. The bowling alley is the town meeting place. They fix the flagpole in the town's roundabout. They give old people rides back and forth to church. When they talk to people, they are right there, present and attentive. I then thought of the various hometowns where I have a place. Feeling known, appreciated, part of something, and tolerated and even loved for my imperfections are present in each of my hometowns. In one of them, competition and living up to standards are the price of belonging. There, appreciation and tolerance are sometimes absent but subtle resentment is present. In general, even there, people know each others names. That counts. In one other hometown, the values are

explicit. There we are called to think about our actions and to love self, others, and God. We agree to this to the extent that this is possible for each of us. Thus, there, everyone knows each others names. My interview research on violence teaches me how important hometowns are. People who act out in violent ways rarely feel as if anyone knows their names nor do they think about most of the consequences of their actions when they are violent. People who commit violence are in a vortex of a black hole where there is only them and belief systems that tell them to take what they want, to be selfish, and do whatever it takes to satisfy the self. Many have been treated badly and have had wretched lives. They latched on the beliefs that its okay to do whatever you want regardless of consequences. Some have not had especially wretched lives, certainly no different from most other people. They too latched onto beliefs that its ok and even commendable to do whatever they want regardless of what happens to others as a result. We who belong to hometowns where everyone knows our names could think about how to make our own places even more of a hometown for ourselves and others. We can do even more acts of welcome. We could think of new ways of being present and attentive. We could also think together about what to do about people who dont have hometowns and other people dont know their names.