Growing up, “Townie” was a four-letter word. It meant a greasy old man sitting at the Park Lunch at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday, loudly regaling the bartender with tales of his high school football heroics. It meant the same ritual every day: going to the same coffee shop every morning, reading the Daily News at the library, grabbing a Richdale’s scratch ticket, and walking under the Fowle’s sign whimsically longing for the days when it was a cigar and magazine store. It not only meant sameness, but an active resistance to change. As a kid, I swore to myself I’d never become a Townie.
More than two decades later, here I am starting a publication called “The Townie.” Not in reluctant surrender to my Townieism, but in a proud embrace of it.
Who am I, anyway? I’m a travel journalist and copywriter who, after years of buying into the negative myth of Townieism, believes it’s time to redefine the idea. Society certainly values leaving where you came from. Sticking around the town where you grew up isn’t cool, no matter how objectively attractive that town might be.
“I’ve lived in Newburyport my whole life, but…” has always been a common refrain of mine – emphasis on the but. “Yeah, I grew up here, went to high school here, and still live here at the age of 34, but I spent a year in Scotland for grad school; but I lived in Colorado for two years; but I travel for a living, so this is really just my home base.”
Like a junkie explaining away their addiction, I wanted people to know I’d had periods of sobriety and could quit Newburyport whenever I wanted. Can you be a Townie when you globetrot for work writing for a travel publication? Can you be a Townie when you’ve walked with penguins in Antarctica and pushed your broken-down car over the dunes of the Arabian desert?
Ironically, yes. The more I saw of the world’s impressive places, the more impressed I was with my own little tourist destination on the mouth of the Merrimack River; the more I realized how lucky I was to live in such a historically rich, geographically diverse town, with color, character, and community, rivaling anything I had seen anywhere else. I had been so consumed with trying not to become a Townie, I never stopped to consider: what is a Townie, anyway?
It’s not about being a sixth-generation Newburyporter, mourning the loss of places like Fowles and Stickneys, or gatekeeping the “real Newburyport” with an air of exclusivity. “Townie” has a negative stigma because it implies stagnation. It implies anchoring in a small port, tuning out the rest of the world, and entrenching yourself in an unrecoverable past.
It’s time for that to change.
To me, a Townie contributes to the local conversation passionately and constructively.
A Townie cares deeply about the community, and takes an active role in that community.
A Townie values Newburyport’s history and tradition, but understands that change is inevitable, and seeks to guide that change for the better.
This is a publication for Townies of all stripes. Whether you just moved here last year or William Lloyd Garrison was your great-great-great grandfather, we want to hear from you. Whether you spend your Wednesday afternoons on a barstool at the Whale, chowing down on Richdale’s hot dogs, adjusting the plaque on your historic home, or leaving angry Facebook comments about the Daily News’ paywall, this is your public square. No paywalls. No filters. Just spirited ideas and opinions.
We want you to say, proudly and with no buts: “Yep, I’m a Townie.”
Eben Diskin
Editor, The Townie
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