Homegrown

                                                   Hometown of Gig Harbor Washington

More often than not these days I am talking to those that are new to the area and my hometown. They find it interesting that I have lived here most of my life. Like many places things have changed. Primarily the population has increased. A lot more homes have been added. What I don’t like is that in the north Gig Harbor area they have cleared cut a lot of trees and added many homes for families and senior housing.  The clear cutting has made each of the homes sitting next to each other. Living in one of the homes you can take one step into the neighbor’s yard. Not one tree is located in any of the homes. Not very appealing as far as I am concerned and there is no view other than the other homes.

Most of the developments that have been built in the Gig Harbor area in the past have a lot of trees still standing. So much that it is hard to know how many homes there are in the area. The only way that I can tell is driving through the neighborhood of the development.

I still love my home town of Gig Harbor and never planning to move although I would love to travel to other places especially visiting family and friends. I hope any further developments in the area will have better planning. I hope the developer for the north Gig Harbor area will see how awful it looks and starts adding back some trees and allowing backyards.

I enjoy talking to new people to the area especially about what Gig Harbor was like when I was a child. At that time there was only one stop sign in Gig Harbor along with a couple shopping centers. Now there is like six shopping centers and another being built. Also to travel into Gig Harbor there was one Tacoma Narrows Bridge up to about nine years ago when a second bridge was added because of the traffic; after the second bridge was built when two additional shopping centers were added. Now you don’t have to go into Tacoma to do most of your shopping like had to do before.

I was talking to a woman who now lives in Gig Harbor however she grew up in Enumclaw where her mother still lives. Enumclaw is east of Tacoma and is about thirty miles from Gig Harbor. It has been a while since I visited Enumclaw however it was a small town that included a lot of farms when I was growing up. Like Gig Harbor it is still a small town however has grown a lot in population as well. Many people have moved into a lot of the small towns in this area; many coming from California and other states. A lot of these people have moved in because of companies like Microsoft and Amazon. With the new money Seattle has become an expensive place to live. Seattle is among the top ten cities in the country as far as renting. Many of the new people have moved into the suburbs where the cost is less. Gig Harbor you can find homes from being inexpensive to up over a million dollars. Many of the homes in my old neighborhood are in the million dollar range.  It is still a nice area to live and for the kids to enjoy one another. Although the town is larger than when I was growing up it still has the country feeling to it. At least for now anyway.

I prefer the times I was growing up here where you didn’t have to worry about your kids. Now the parents are waiting for the school buses for the children to get on. I don’t blame the parents because it is hard to know how safe it is. Gig Harbor is still a good place to live however I like the good old days. I am sure many adults feel the same way about their towns.