MILTONville: More Stories To Tell

For four  years I wrote almost every single day about the most wonderful people I met and the beautiful places I saw in the city of Milton, Georgia. Just before the City was incorporated I had this overwhelming desire to create the town I wanted to live in and my idea was to capture all that I love about living here.  I knew the possibility of the way of life in this northwest corner of Fulton would change and I wanted to try and preserve it, in my own way, even if in my own mind.

At the time, I had no idea or prior interest in how a city was formed and how local government worked.  I come from "the big city".  Actually, a few of them.  I had never before had a huge interest in writing, I'd never blogged, or built a website, had an interest in history, or taken photographs like I did then.  And I had never met a mayor.

And so, I created a website in October 2006 called MILTONville USA... Live in Georgia. Love in Milton.

They should of called the city Miltonville.  Even Jan Jones once said that to me.  It's a much better description in a one-word name.

I stopped writing for the last few years because I wanted to find the next step in making my "perfect" vision of Milton a reality.  I got involved in a few committees at City Hall and started the Milton Arts Committee and had displays of local artists' work in the Council/Court Room.  I did that for a year. I started taking the initiative to use my voice and make a difference at city council meetings.

I learned that the council and staff welcomed my ideas, they have always been very patient and listened, encouraged me to learn about how a city works and I realize how fortunate I am.  Because of this, I have something many relocated families may not have found here yet, the warm feeling in your heart of being "connected" to a place. Even when you have never lived anywhere even remotely similar to a place like this.

One of the places I come from is San Francisco/Marin County, California.  For the first 10 years I lived there, as I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge every day, I literally, and audibly, gasped at the magnificent beauty and thought about my blessings every single day.  I couldn't believe how lucky I was.  That is exactly how I feel about my life here in Milton, Georgia.  It's been almost nine years and I still feel this way. This little dot on the map in "the sort of rural" South.

...What I have found, almost nine years later,like mine, there are so many families that have hopped off the "relo bus" to stay in a place like this...

In a place that looks just like Miltonville.