Monday TeaRoom 9/28/09 Nicknamed and famous?

[Chip]

Greetings TeaFriends. Please come in and sit a spell, share what is in your cup, and TeaChat with us.

Yesterday we discussed the most memorable topic on the forum. You can still vote and discuss yesterday's topic.

Today's TeaRoom poll and discussion topic. A fun topic, a little off the topic of tea, unless your town is known for tea. So, today's question, is your town nicknamed and/or is it well known or famous for something? Please be sure to share some details here.

I am looking forward to sharing this TeaDay with everyone, bottoms up.

[olivierco]

Not nicknamed nor famous for anything. Just a quiet little town.

No tea today, once again.

[Geekgirl]

My hometown is McMinnville, OR. We call it "Mac." (I personally call it "McMudhole," but that is beside the point.)

It is famous as the home of the Spruce Goose, housed at the Evergreen Aviation Museum.

In the 80s, a B-movie starring Helen Hunt was filmed down the street from my house, and at our local high school. (Quarterback Princess.) Another little known fact: we had a bear pit in our city park until about 1912(ish.)




One of the most notorious UFO sightings and photos ever, (Trent UFO sighting) was in McMinnville, OR, and every May, a local pub puts on a UFO festival, going all out with themes and costumes.

Will Vinton of Vinton Studios/California raisins fame is a former resident, as is Charlie Sitton, a once-pro basketball player who attended my high school.

"Jackass" fans will recognize the name Ehren McGhehey, who was born and raised in Mac, and is now the owner of a local skate shop. I think (???) he is the younger brother of one of my classmates.

Famous author Beverly Cleary was born in McMinnville.

Fun stuff.

[Victoria]

The city no, but the county, yes. We have Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, California Angels Baseball, the Ducks Hockey, Mission San Juan Capistrano, The Nixon Library and some very renowned beaches. Orange County is nicknamed - The OC, once named for all the orange groves that once were here. Now, sadly gone, since land is at an all time premium.

So as to not sound like I was answering the poll correctly, let me clarify that in Southern California the cities all flow together into one, so when you are driving you may not be aware what city you are in, therefore, we usually affiliate ourselves with the county, Orange County, rather than the city we live in. It's a great place to live with weather second only to Hawaii.

[Drax]

Hrm, interesting. No nicknames that I'm aware of. Virginia Beach (and Norfolk) are relatively famous for housing a large portion of the United States Navy, however. There's also (relatively) popular beaches and seafood (i.e. Chesapeake Bay).

A year ago, I was living in Corpus Christi, TX. Which is known as the "sparkling city by the sea" (though I think that might be a common nickname?) -- and of course, being the home of Whataburger and birthplace of Selena.

This morning I'm continuing with a 2006 "silver tuocha" from simao county. It's a 50g tuo that must have been compressed under the weight of 50 elephants. It has a relatively strong, young sheng taste, but I think this one will age poorly b/c of the super compression... on the plus side, it does not appear to be burning my throat... yet.

[Trey Winston]

My hometown's main claim to fame is that it was briefly the home of a certain E. Munch, probably best known for this:



He appeared to have had a good time here, as he dubbed the town "A pearl among the coastal towns", which quote is now used in every aspect of the town's tourism promotion. He painted a number of paintings here, most notably the enormous "The Sun", which is a winter sunrise:



The location where he painted it is well know, and is now marked with a statue of the artist and a slightly smaller version of the painting. "The Sun" is semi-famous for always having been visible in the background when the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded at the University of Oslo, before the ceremony was moved to the city hall some years ago.

We leave the name of the town as an exercise for the reader.

Having some artistic SN today.

[kymidwife]

My little town of 28,000 is an oversized Mayberry USA called Madisonville... affectionately nicknamed "Mad-ville" and "Mad-Vegas" by the locals.

It's not terribly famous for anything other than being MY birthplace.

The town motto is "Best Town on Earth" as illustrated by the city's own music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLn3honvSZU

We're also recently semi-famous for the Great Ice Storm of 2009, this past January/February. I'm not sure there has ever been anything quite like it... the entire area was completely shut down for a couple of weeks with no power, no phone, no gasoline, no access to generators for 300+ miles, no running water for days, and massive amounts of physical damage to homes, cars, and trees. That first night as the ice built up, there was constant loud popping noise like gunfire in the dark... every tree broken or completely down, every power line down. These several months later, there is still evidence of the terrible damage. It was our own version of a hurricane, I think. Soon I will be delivering all those ice storm babies. If you want to see a doozy of an ice storm, there are a few videos on YouTube and some photo series on Flickr and Photobucket, but honestly it is not well documented because it was just nearly impossible to travel about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT-otjAJ4uo&feature=fvw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2pOdNkr ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFr-2KG4 ... re=related

Taiwan Wuyi 2008 from Floating Leaves in my non-leaking Hagi Biwa this morning.

Sarah

[Chip]

Reading, pronounced redding, nicknamed The Prezel City . The city is on the west side of Mt Penn and has the infamous Reading Pagoda towering over the city atop the mountain, really a juxtaposition to the conservative PA Dutch roots in the area.

Home of a lot things long gone such as Monopoly's Reading Railroad, Met-Ed who owned and operated TMI at the time of the accident, and major steel and textile industries long defunct (also formerly called the Factory Outlet Capital of the world when a factory outlet was exactly that, factories that also had outlets), Cadilac Fleetwood was created and made here.

Now, we are regretably home to "John and Kate" of reality TV fame who can be seen fleeing the tabloids and paparazzo.

Sports celebs Stu Jackson who is now the Exec Director of the NBA, Hall of Famer Lenny Moore, his nephew NBAer Donyell Marshall, NFL QB Kerry Collins.

John Updike is from here, and his Run Rabbit Run was filmed across the street from my home growing up.

Actor Michael Constantine has always lived here when not acting, weird seeing him walk down a local small town mall. More recently Kelly McGillis and Richard Gere oddly landed here.

Many celebs make a pit stop here to quietly "dry out," etc, a list that is too long to list.

[thirtysixbelow]

I'm currently living and going to school in Blacksburg VA. The town is named after the Black family who established the town in the late 1700's. It's not really famous for anything but most people probably recognize the name or have heard about the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus on April 16th 2007. I wish there was something better to be famous for, maybe VT football.

[MASALACHAAAAIIIIII]

Ya Oxford, MS or "University", MS is known as the Harvard of the South
We hosted a Presidential Debate in the last election...impossible to get in! It would have been cool to let more students see it....Plus this city is the POLAR opposite of the rest of MS, most people have neutral accents...hehehehe

Having a cup of puttabong, yumyumyum, before my Geomechanics exam--->AHHHHHH!!!!!!

[geeber1]

The town I live in was formerly two towns, Milton and Freewater (because they had Free Water ) When they decided to merge the towns into one, it became Milton-Freewater. Over the years the nickname has become Muddy Frogwater and every summer they hold the Muddy Frogwater Festival. (formerly the Pea Festival - don't know which is worse!) There are frog statues all around town, but not many actual frogs.

The town I work in is most known for being mentioned in Bugs Bunny cartoons (The Walla Walla Wishy-Washy Washing Machine Company), for being the home town of Adam West of Batman fame, and for being the location of the Washington State Penitentiary. It is frequently called Wally World.

The town I grew up in (Easton, CT) was most famous for Helen Keller living there. I think there have been several actors / actresses (Jessica Tandy & Hume Croynyn) and artists to live there as well.

Nepal First Flush in my cup this morning. Nothing but lemon water here at work.

[Victoria]

Started the day with Groomtree Estate 2nd Flush Darjeeling from TeaSource. I'm really more of a FF kinda girl, but this has a bit of a bite.

Next up Baozhong from Camellia Sinensis.

[Maitre_Tea]

Sadly the town I live in isn't really nicknamed for anything, but I think we had/have some famous people living here, can't remember their names off the top of my head. Our town is known as "the city of trees and PhDs", which sounds kind of cheesy IMHO.

No tea yet today

[Dreamer]

Yep, my town is nicknamed and famous for something(s).
St. Louis (I don't live in the city-proper, rather the metro area) is called the "Gateway to the West" and is home to the often-photographed Gateway Arch.

Also famous for the 1904 World's Fair where Richard Blechyden, served tea with ice and invented iced tea (see, Chip this question did have a connection to tea )

Today, so far only Ceylon Vithanakande in my cup...needing some green soon.

Great fun topic; thanks for answering everybody!

Dreamer

[LFINCH8]

I'm in good ole Nashville, TN...dubbed NashVegas, CashVille, Music City USA and The Athens of the South.
Home to the Grand Ole Opry, The Ryman, and the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Also, we have a full-scale replica of the Athenian Parthenon...one of the reasons behind the Athens nickname.