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There are so many cute towns in Georgia, and I have lived, gone to school, and explored A BUNCH of them. I never get tired of exploring. So when it came time to document my hometown, I had a difficult time deciding which part of my life experience was "my hometown". Was it where I was born? Where I grew up? Where I went to college? I decided to go with the locale that has a particularly small special place in my heart as I remember what it was, rather than what it is currently – Dacula. (Pronounced duh-KYOO-luh not like Dracula.)
Over the weekend, I meant to get pictures, but…we found ourselves in Marietta instead visiting with the in-laws. That means no pictures. :(
So let me describe Dacula to you. It is this tiny little town (what you see above) that resides along side railroad tracks. If you continue walking to the left down this road, there is the high school, which has grown to enormous proportions since I was a child, and to the right is a little (now bigger) gazebo.
And that is how I want to remember my hometown.
Y'see as I grew older, so did Dacula. The population kept growing and growing and growing… The city now revolves around one VERY LARGE church known as Hebron. If you live in Dacula, you go to that church. There are other churches in the area, but Hebron is THE church. (Bad news for me since I disliked it!) Beyond that, the area has added a girnormous Kroger (to go with the ginormous high school I presume). There are also cute little restaurants in the area and a gigantic bowling alley, a park and a library. The post office even seemed to grow with the population!! Beautiful land with trees as far as the eye can see have been chopped down to make room for the growing population. Where fields once were, there are now subdivisions and lots of them!
While I understand that population growth is not necessarily a bad thing for a small town, I do miss having things the way they were. I tend to prefer trees, farms, and land to buildings, businesses, and restaurants especially when population growth makes it more difficult to see stars at night. :( I like to remember my hometown as being a small little place rather than the large expanded one it currently is.
How do you feel about population growth in rural areas? Did the population in your hometown grow with you? Do you feel the same sense of "home" when you revisit your hometown years later?
**This post is part of The Daily October Challenge. Visit Secret Obsession's blog to find out more and join in! :)
