Welcome to Woodstock (Again)

I moved to the USA with my wife Stacey and our 1-year-old son Vincent two and a half years ago. We had been living in England, where I am from, for two years before that but Stacey, a true Southerner, woke up on another foggy, muggy, miserable English spring day and announced that she wanted to see the sun again–so back to Georgia we came.

Our first year was spent between her parents’ home in Dallas, GA, and our first rented home in Marietta. It was a really nice house and neighborhood–too nice in fact, given that neither of us were working at the time and once I did find work, it was selling slightly warm and worn Toyotas’ to people somewhere to our East.

I was fortunate enough to get a “proper” job in January last year and it coincided with us moving to Woodstock. It was February and was bone-cold. The furnace on our new rented home wasn’t working so for two days we had to live like Eastern European émigrés at Ellis Island, all three of us sleeping under a huddle of blankets and coats. It was very comfortable, but you sometimes woke in the middle of the night to find your leg was sticking out of a sleeve.

Things settled down eventually, and I began to explore more of our new neighborhood.

I should explain that I’d lived in Woodstock before. Not the burgeoning Cherokee town, but the Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England. Home to Blenheim Palace, seat of the Duke of Marlborough and birthplace of one Winston Churchill who always referred to the stunning palace and grounds as Home. The English Woodstock is exactly the sort of place you would see on ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ of a Sunday Evening, cobbled stone cottages, spotless Rose Gardens, slightly awkward conversation in tea rooms with Vicars etc. But the time I spent there was some of the happiest of my life. 

One similarity between the two I was delighted to happen upon was the local pub–in my case, within staggering distance of my home and with a nice international flavor of beers and food within. Next door is the , serving the best Pad Thai I have ever tasted along with many other tasty treats. Not that I haven’t embraced the South with trips to Bub-Ba-Q and whenever I get a fixin’ for ribs and Mac 'n' Cheese (only in the South would this be considered a vegetable!)

My now 3-year-old son spends his weekends feeding the ducks at Allatoona Lake and running around the track and play facilities at ; he loves exploring the castle at Kidzstock off 92 and just walking round the clean, friendly streets of the neighborhood. Dad gets his peace either at Summits or pounding out the hard yards on the track at Eagle Mountain. For this reason alone, although I came to Woodstock a neutral, I’m now an honorary .

When our lease came up for renewal this year, we happily signed up for another 12 months in this welcoming, thriving and optimistic community, and we are looking forward to seeing what the New Year will hold both for us and the little town we are happy and proud to call our home.

-Guy Bailey is an English writer who lives in Woodstock. When not chasing his son around Hobgood Park he can be found telling anybody who’ll listen that it’s only Soccer in America and Football to the rest of the World. You can read more about him at his blog, Blessay From America