I grew up in northern California in a town called Fairfield, which is kind of exactly between San Francisco and Sacramento, a small suburb. And I'm the youngest of five children.
I was the kind of kid who loved singing. I loved rapping; I loved attention. But for me, it was more about chasing the dream of being a superstar because of the town I was from and because of what I'd seen.
Wonder Woman isn't Spider-man or Batman. She doesn't have a town, she has a world. That was more interesting to me than a kind of contained, rote superhero franchise.
I grew up in Montpelier, Indiana. It's a little town in the northeast corner of Indiana. It's a rural community; about two thousand people, a very much hometown U.S.A. kind of thing.
But, look, Washington is a town that creates myths for its own existence and its own amusement, and I was a subject of myth, sort of like Grendel in Beowulf - you know, not seen very often but often talked about.
When I was growing up, my stepmother's sister was the chief detective in one of the adjoining towns, so she piqued my interest in crime.
When I was a kid in Michigan, I used to play ball with a town team on Sunday. Of course, I'd go to church first. Played the church organ, as a matter of fact.
Challenge America grants go to the towns and hamlets of this sprawling country, where big touring companies will rarely go, and major actors, actresses, writers and artists may never appear in person.
Vail's a very important place for me. Everyone kind of took me in and accepted me in that town, and they still have to this day. I wouldn't be a downhill skier if I hadn't been there.
If I go out in the street and one guy gets a picture, then someone calls the press to say Mario was there. The day after in the press, it's, 'Mario was there'. That's normal, I just walk in town like a normal guy.
Ann Romney has been front-and-center. She's held a lot of town halls, a lot of campaign rallies, on her own, separate from her husband. And she is dynamite out on the campaign trail.
At first, I didn't like coming down to Los Angeles at all. It's like, everything's black and white compared to where I live out in the middle of nowhere. There's, like, 400 people in my town!
I think to close half of Magic Kingdom for the purpose of a White House invitation town hall meeting on a phony main street on behalf of a phony president just strikes me as weird.
'One Tree Hill' really had an impact on my life. It was the first time I left my house and my family in New York and went to a small town in North Carolina. It was the most incredible experience for me.
Le Cirque at first was one of those general French restaurants in town, which were cooking more or less the same food. At Le Cirque, I wanted to do something different while respecting the foundation of the restaurant. I did that through the menu.
Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.
Whenever I'm in Des Moines, I always make a trip to Manhattan Deli for a sandwich. I spent a lot of time there when I was going to college at Drake, so it's usually my one 'go-to' food stop when I'm in town.
What we don't talk about enough is Ohio's unique and remarkable quality of life. We are a state of cities, small towns and growing suburbs where life is affordable and destinations within reach. There is no better place to raise a family.
I was born and grew up in Fitzgerald, way down in south Georgia. It was a mill town and my family ran the cotton mill. My grandfather was mayor many times and my family felt deeply rooted to that spot.
When I was young, my family didn't go on outings to the circus or trips to Disneyland. We couldn't afford them. Instead, we stayed in our small rural West Texas town, and my parents took us to cemeteries.
A hostility to modernity is shared by ideologies that have nothing else in common - a nostalgia for moral clarity, small-town intimacy, family values, primitive communism, ecological sustainability, communitarian solidarity, or harmonies with the rhy...
