I haven't been there in a long time, Oz, but I remember it as a nice town, a river town. Not a city, but a fair-sized place, maybe several thousand people. The downtown had several restaurants, bars, cafes, a movie theater, I think. All of Upstate New York has significant snow, but Owego is not the worst in terms of snow. I doubt it would be Syracuse or Rochester levels, although I'm guessing. Sure to be ski areas in driving distance, though I'm not informed about that. It's not too far from the Finger Lakes and Ithaca, which is a nice town, too. I think it would be a good place to live for a while.

There is also Oswego, which is often confused with Owego, so watch out for that.

i don't think i've ever been there, unless i was just passing through on the way to somewhere else.

I looked at some YouTubes. It looks like a pretty, little town. It's little.

the promotional video (i hate the music in that)


cbs video from 2009, when owego was voted "coolest little town in America".



I figure you know that stuff, but I didn't.

It's not real close to NYC (prolly about the same distance as I was in Baltimore.)

But I've been to the finger lakes region. It's pretty.

I think I'd like it there (for about seven months of the year. Have I mentioned that I don't like to deal with snow for more than two weeks? )



this youtuber lives there:

http://www.youtube.com/user/heyygirly14 ... _lfp4Can6Y

This guy lives there as well:
http://www.youtube.com/user/psage44#p/u/0/


You gonna go see it? Sounds like fun.

Looks like I picked the wrong day day to give up anti-birfing...

Not only is it a small town, there's nothing remotely city-ish anywhere near it. (Binghamton is less than 50K.) Nothing on the PA side of the border, either. It's not in the "lake-effect" snow belt (with many feet of snow per year, just in the really-depressingly-ugly winter belt. Great deer hunting though. Gorgeous foliage in the Fall. Good canoeing on the Susquehanna River, good hiking. Plenty of camping and state parks. The mountains aren't really what most people call mountains, more like rolling hills. I bet housing is cheaper than dirt.

Great place to be from.

Just watched that video. HUNTINGDON, PA is #5? Good Lord. What an idiotic poll. I have literally watched paint dry there.

They also both mispronounced the name of the college. It's not Juanita, it's Juniata. Joo'-nee-at-a. Iroquois, not Spanish. Man, that irritates. (It's one of the 8 colleges I have attended.) Good rock climbing, good school, lots northern rednecks and not much else. Good hunting, though.

8 colleges?!? Was Sister Sarah at any of them?

Was it your paint, W4? Was you feeling lazy?

Nope, all East Coast. Only 4 were undergrad. I haz too many degrees.

We painted our dorm room. There's nothing else to do in Huntingdon except get drunk. (Not saying we weren't.) Families go down to the tracks, set up lawn chairs and beer coolers, and watch the trains go by.

I'm wondering, what do you really think???

Seriously, thanks for the heads up all who responded. Mimi - that is a quality tourism video.

You're right, housing is ridiculously cheap, especially compared to what we pay here. Average 3 bedroom house price in my neck of the woods is near on half a million now. It would be a good time to do an overseas job that still pays in Aussie dollars coz its pretty strong at the moment.

But, it does look like a really small town. And it sounds like its a pretty decent distance to anywhere bigger. I would love to work a couple of years in the US, but I'm not sure that this is exactly the sort of place I would like to be (the other option I had a couple of years ago was Cedar Rapids, Iowa - not my kinda place either!).

Cedar Rapids is close to where I was raised. Owego looks like it is completely out in the boondocks. At least CR is within a two hour drive of the larger cities. My experience with small Midwest towns is that there tends to be a lot of nosy busybodies who always want their noses in your business. This may be true of most smaller cities, regardless of where.

Ozzie, one thing about the northeastern US, driving distances between towns and cities aren't all that bad. Here in my megalopolis, we drive a couple of hours (RT) to see friends at the other end of town. Its probably the same way in Oz.

In NY, the same amount of time driving might get you to NYC or a ski area or to Canada. Beautiful lakes, hills (they call them mountains ) and greenery. It is a beautiful place to be for a while.

I would give a lot for the privilege of living for a few years in an isolated mountain village in, say, Japan. Time enough to learn the language and know the people.

The same might be true for a Northeastern U.S. town in the boondocks. They are indeed closed communities and can be intrusive on one's personal life. However, these little towns were the foundation of the America that we know now. Only in the past century did we become primarily a urban people; like everybody else, we used to be mostly farmers. Most of the little towns are dying; this one seems to be lively if not thriving. Colleges make a huge difference.

You can get to major metro centers with a bit of driving, except in the depth of winter. Buffalo, Rochester, and Toronto all offer a lot.

You could write a book about life in a post-industrial American small town.

They make all the difference in the world.

Perhaps it's not so bad today, in the age of the Internet. But having lived in some small, "salt of the earth" places, the lack of intellectual stimulation soon reached the point of starvation, and it was leave or die.

George Clooney and Elisabetta Canalis have broken up!

Aww, there there George, don't haz a sad. Come to kimba. kimba make it alllll better.

Ozzie, I think venturing out to a place that is so completely different would be fantastic! I've never been there, but my brother went to high school a bit north of there and just loved it. Yes, weather is "interesting", but experience like this would make for a richer, fuller life. Besides, on weekend you could easily do road trips to a lot of neat places!

So I'm in the back o' the house, in my bedroom, surfing teh net & watching the TV when...What's that noise? Clinking form the kitchen? Hard to hear since the dishwasher is running, is the damn cat on the counter again? Better go see.

Mom is eating breakfast. Bowl of cereal. At 9:00 in the evening.

Me: "Mom, are you eating breakfast?"

Mom: "Well, I was. I'm done now. Why is it so dark at 9:00 in the morning?"

Me: "That would be because it's 9:00 in the evening and you just went to bed about 2 hours ago." (she rarely lasts past 6:30-7:00)

Mom: "Oh. So it's not morning?"

Me: "No, it's night."

Mom: "Well, that explains why it's so dark. I'm going to bed."

Me: "If you're not sleepy we can watch a movie or something, you don't have to..."

Mom: "I'm going to bed!"

Mom went back to bed. Her cat is very happy & ready to cuddle. My cat is confused. I'm going to be waking up every time the house creaks for the rest of my freaking life. I've hidden the car keys.

I've been through this, Estiveo, and it will pass.

My wife's parents had Alzheimers, and we moved them in with us. I'm not going to tell a lot of stories, but it was a very, very difficult time.

I'm still glad we brought them into our home instead of putting them in a nursing home. It was extremely tough to deal with, and it (and some things going on with MY parents and siblings) caused me to go into a pretty severe depression for a couple years, and it ended my legal career.

But we took excellent care of my wife's parents, right up until they both died in our home, so I have no regrets. At one point, a doctor leaned across the table toward us in a meeting and solemnly assured us that "you can't possibly be taking care of both these people in your own home without any help."

I looked back at him and said, "We've been doing it for two years already. I don't see why we can't continue. We're taking WAY better care of them than they'd get in any nursing home."

We got kicked out of hospice twice. I still brag about that to hospice people.

When they put somebody (in this case, my wife's mom) on hospice, it means they think you have less than six months to live. From the time my wife's mom was put on hospice until she finally died was almost three and a half years. They had to keep kicking us out of the program, because we were taking such good care of her that, paralyzed and bedridden and demented as she became in the late stages of Alzheimers, she just wasn't ready to go yet. I'd put 30 pills in a mortar and pestle, grind them up and mix them with yogurt, and feed it to her spoonful by spoonful. My wife changed her diapers for 3 years (but that might be payback; I understand she may have changed my wife's diapers for a period of time, too).

It was a nightmare, and yet it was one of the best things I ever did in my life.

Take care of your mom, Estiveo. Wake up in the middle of the night and check on her when you hear a noise. Keep the car keys hidden. It gets worse before it gets better, but ... if there's anything in the world we can do to support you and help you get through it, you let us know.

Seconded, Estiveo.

I so sorry Estiveo

I had my mom and sister. My mom was frail, CHF & COPD, and my sister mentally retarded, (like a spoiled rotten 5 y/o that never grew up otherwise normal) had started having pretty bad seizures. Mom lasted for 3 years in and out of the hospital, while sister’s seizures were getting worse and apparently not controllable. The diapers came first, and after seizing, falling and breaking a foot or leg for the 3rd time I kept her in a wheelchair. But the dementia was getting worse, and so was the sleepwalking.

I put a baby monitor in her bedroom so I could hear her at night. But when she was sleepwalking or just wondering I couldn’t hear her. First I put a bell on her door, and that worked, but only if I was exactly where I could hear the monitor when she opened the door. After getting past me on that a couple times I took off the door knob and turned it around so I could lock her in at night just in case. It was the only safe thing to do.

After another year or two that was no loner necessary because she couldn’t walk at all anymore. In the end she was having about 40 seizures a day, and once she seized for 14 hours straight. I kept her home with me until she died after 11 years. She would never have lived that long in any facility and I too would do it all over again. She was very sick for a very long time, but she was the sweetest most loving thing that ever lived. (She could also be as stubborn as a mule!)

One thing I found out is that you learn quickly how to just keep one step ahead for safety sake. I even had a safety belt/ harness on the wall above the toilet so she wouldn’t flip off it while brushing her teeth. I swear even standing right beside her at all times you couldn’t stop her from falling, she’d flip head first in a split second. I would certainly start with a baby monitor. Knowing what she is doing and where she is at all times is really important. Once my sister got up and turned on the stove in the middle of the night. If you are dealing with dementia you never know what to expect.

When I was volunteering with the rescue squad we were called once to assist a State Trooper with a “confused” gentleman he had pulled over on interstate 95 south driving at 25 mph. He was very pleasant and kept saying he was just “going down to the store”. This happened halfway to Richmond and his home was in Philly. He’d been missing for 3 days and his family was frantic.

You just have to always be ready for anything.

Lots O’Hugs

Yes.

At the time, it's horrible and you wonder if it's ever going to be over.

When it's over, you're so glad you did what you did. That pretty much sums it up.

Thirded.

And thanks Foggy and MsDaisy, too. There's heartbreak in that kind of labor, but it's part of what we're here for. Sometimes a big part.

Some people are heroes for a few minutes, some for years.

You guys are making me cry, which is not good because I'm at work ...

You're in my thoughts, Estiveo. Reach out if you need help.

Thanks all, for the kind words and support. This was hard because it's the first time that she didn't know WHEN she was. She's always off on the day of the week so I have clocks in the kitchen and her bedroom that dsiplay day and date, but she's never not known what time of day it is. And of course this morning she has no memory of last night. This may explain why the neighbors found our garage door open late at night a few weeks ago.

She's always been good at self-limiting her driving; I still let her drive herself to get her beloved gag-in-the-bag Jack in the Box lunch and to her hair and manicure appointments, but that's it; I drive her everywhere else. She is not allowed to drive after 3PM or in the rain. But if she's gonna start wandering at night, I'll be hiding the keys when she goes to bed then put them back in her purse in the mornings. It would hurt her feelings to know I was hiding her keys.

Bottom line is that the goal has always been to keep her healthy, happy and in her own home and that's what I'm gonna do.