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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Reppin MORE of our Weird Hometown Traditions

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From a rubber duck contest to hypnotizing chickens, listeners share stories about annual customs, events and practices that set their hometowns apart from others. MORE: We're going to be bringing you more listener-led stories this year, and we need your help. Tell us about a place you went with your parents that was special to you. Maybe it was the annual trip to Niagara Falls or a national park. Or maybe it was just a one-time thing but had an outsized impact. Call and tell us at 315-992-7902 or email us at [email protected].

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi, you've reached Dylan. This is the Atlas Obscura Podcast line. I'm not home right now, but leave

0:09.0

me a message about your hometown traditions.

0:12.6

After the beep.

0:13.4

Good morning.

0:17.3

My name's Rosie.

0:18.3

I live in Amsterdam now, but I grew up in the southwest of England

0:21.1

and I went to secondary school in a little town called

0:22.9

Dawlish. So, Doolish is a coastal town a few years ago the sea actually washed

0:27.8

away the train line and the village green has the beach at one end of it so it kind of leads out onto the sea and on another

0:34.4

side of the village green there is a brook that leads down to the water. Now every

0:38.9

year my school would host their summer fate their summer fair on this village green

0:42.1

and the highlight of the event was the

0:46.0

rubber duck race. So there was this huge box of rubber ducks all slightly

0:51.0

different all with a number on the bottom.

0:53.5

You would pay your pound, and you would choose your number of rubber duck, and you would

0:56.7

get a little slip with your number on it.

1:01.0

Then come the time for the race, two of the teachers would stand on the bridge over the

1:03.7

brook and dump this big box of rubber ducks into the brook and you would cheer your duck

1:07.5

on as it raced down through the brook to the finish line.

1:10.9

So far it's a little bit weird, but where it gets really quirky, is that this brook led out to the sea quite quickly,

1:17.0

and we didn't want the ducks going in the sea because that would be polluting the sea.

1:21.0

So somebody, when I lived there it was always the village doctor, had to climb into the brook and

...

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