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[Rustyt1953]

Did you choose it or did it choose you?

After dad retired from the military he moved us to Cincy as he had two brothers living here and he would be close to their boyhood home in Bracken County KY. He quickly landed a great job at Cincinnati Milling Machine and we settled in nicely.

I have lived and worked in and traveled to many wonderful places in this land. I always made my way back here as it was familiar and reassuring territory. All in all, for me anyway, a great place to live.

My question: How did you folks end up hanging your hats where you do?

 

[pawngal]

I have traveled most of the US, some of Canada, been to Panama and even Cuba (pre-Castro) but only 2 years of my life I have lived farther than 20 miles from where I was born and raised. I guess it is like one of my favorite Merle Haggard songs

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy7ho7WKqwQ"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy7ho7WKqwQ[/ame]

 

[walkin jack]

Pawngal that was great. The Hag is one of my all-time favorite C&W singers/song writers and that is a great song.

As for me My childhood home chose me but after my military servive I chose it back again. I moved into the house I grew up in in 1950. I was
5 years old. I'll be 74 next month and I live less than 5 miles from that house.

The roots of my raisin' indeed....

 

[waxman]

I didn't go very far. I live about 2 blocks from the hospital I was born in.

 

[Sevens]

Neat topic!
I grew up in a small town south of Flint, Michigan. Upon graduating high school I knew that I had to get away and I didn't have a lot of direction or much of a plan but Columbus, Ohio appeared as an option. Go away, not too far, go to school and try to figure it out along the way.

I wasn't cut out for school and dropped out after a year, but I took to work very quickly and working hard for a decent wage was something that agreed with me. I made good friends in school and I'm still close with them.

It seemed like maybe through my 20's that I lived here but "home" was Michigan. Having and raising children here in Columbus is probably when Michigan became where I was from, and this place my real home.

No -- I don't give a steaming loaf about football. I love it here but if there was one thing I'd change, it's the complete lunacy attached to the local amateur football team.

 

[RobertJ.]

I didn't go very far. I live about 2 blocks from the hospital I was born in.

One mile for me. When I ride my bike along the boardwalk I pass the tiny little hospital where I was born. It's now a school admin building.

So, did I choose it, or did it choose me? Both.

When I was nine, we moved to SE Alaska. My dad was a logger, and we lived in a remote logging camp for five years. What a great place for a kid! I bought my first high-powered rifle when I was eleven! I lived here again twice, briefly, after that. I went to high school here for two years and then lived here for a year after I got out of the navy. I started working for a NW based hotel/restaurant chain and worked at seven of their properties. I've lived all over the PNW and moved back here from Seattle twelve years ago.

When I go to the grocery store, I bump into people I've known my whole life. One of my friends, when we were little, my dad worked for his dad in a small logging operation, and we've been friends since we were four years old. I go to church with about a half dozen guys I knew in high school.

I know Oregon's politics leave something to be desired (Idaho would suit me much better). Regardless, I'm never moving again.

 

[STCM(SW)]

Well, I'm glad that I am 2700 miles from where I was born!
N.J. SUCKS in more ways than I can count.....

 

[wood714]

I was born and raised in Cincinnati. Moved a little north to Fairfield with my parents after graduating, then bought my first house in Cincinnati a couple years later. Lived there for 8 years then bought a house in Fairfield due to the schools.

I started getting major depression in the winters, monster cold, gray skies, and skeleton trees.

Sent a resume to St. Augustine, and Vero Beach where my ex grew up. Got offers from both, but The St. Augustine Record paid for me to come down for a 3 day interview...set me up at the Hampton on the beach, gave me 4 weeks to start, and agreed to pay all my moving expenses.

Been here since 2001 and never had a single regret, well I kinda miss a real bowl of chili now and then. I go up a couple times in the summer to visit.

Warm weather, the beach, and year round riding was my main reasons for being where I am.

 

[Broke Hoss]

I aint sure who chose what. But circumstance led to me back to my hometown. I spent my whole life planning on leaving here as soon as I could. And after graduation I was in the Army & gone. The rules back then were I couldn't get on the department as long as my dad was still working. He wasn't planning on going anywhere in a hurry, so I was considering a full career wearing green.

At the end of my 1st tour in Korea, I re-up with plans to see Germany & the other side of the world. About 2 months later dad calls to tell me he got PO'd & he retired. Hmmm Uncle Sam won't let me unsign, so I'm still in.

Ahhh but I come home on leave, & me and my high school sweetheart fall in love all over again. We end up married & start out traveling the world. But she'd given up a career in nursing & really wanted to get back to it.

So when I finished my 6 years, we came back home & built a house on an acre deeded to us by her parents. We've raised 2 sons here, & I'm hanging it up after 34 years at this policing game.

 

[sigp220.45]

I was born in Michigan, raised in Illinois. I went into the Air Force and was stationed in California, North Dakota, Guam, and Texas. Got out and joined the FBI and lived in Louisiana, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, and finally Colorado. I'm retired now and will probably stay here because Uncle Sugar won't pick up the tab on moving expenses any more.

I had a say in all of those moves except for North Dakota. In that case the Air Force made good on their promise to make me a cop and send me to Minot if I flunked out of navigator training. I did, and they did.

 

[TTSH]

It is a terrible curse that I was born in Massachusetts and have lived here for all but six months of my long, sorry life. While I grew up in Western MA, after college I had to move closer to Beantown to find work. I bought my little starter home in the only town I could afford and ended up trapped here for life by family considerations and poverty, both the result of divorce.

I always dreamed of escaping to a saner New England state, but over time all the NE states have gone moonbat to a greater or lesser degree. NH is the last state with a little bit of sanity left, but extreme high property taxes... not something one should ever want in retirement... eventually killed that dream.

So it looks like I will die here behind enemy lines in a one-party state where the Constitution means nothing and my vote is as much a joke as it would be down in Venezuela. My daily challenge is to make the best of it regardless and to try not to think too much about what could have been.

 

[vigil617]

Never in a million would I have thought I'd hang my hat in a house in semi-rural Cumberland County, North Carolina. But life has its blessings even amid its challenges, so 10 years ago, my new wife and I decided to live halfway between her work and mine. A couple of years later, we found a little house built in a subdivision that used to be a corn field and moved in, and now it's what we call home.

I've had a chance to live in several different places in North Carolina, including my hometown that I moved back to when I finished military service to join our family business. So even though living in the shadow of Fayetteville was never on my bucket list, it's worked out that way. The longer I'm here, the more it looks like this will be the spot I'll be wheeled out of feet first. You never know, though....

For me, home is and always will be North Carolina. As the first part of the state toast says, "Here's to the land of the longleaf pine, the summer land where the sun doth shine, where the weak grow strong, and the strong grow great, here's to Down Home, the Old North State."

 

[joeintexas]

Born in Texas, lived a good many years in New Mexico then back to Texas. The wife is from Florida, when we got married she said she would like to move back to Florida, I told her "hang with me a while in Texas and I'll get you back there someday". When we both retired last year she said, "well, is it someday yet". I suppose it was cause we are here and it really does feel like home.

 

[crazyphil]

Born and raised in Idaho. Been to all 50 states and several countries.
Lots of nice places, but none better than right here where I'm at. I
believe I will stay.

 

[Murphy's Law]

Retired from the Navy 1985 in Tampa. Grew up in Detroit and left there in 1964. Now going on over 30 years here in the sunshine state.....so this is home for me now. Did I mention because of my decision I "don't" have to shovel any snow in the winter months?

 

[427mach1]

I grew up in Spokane, WA. After graduate school, I was offered my dream job working in a large wind tunnel in the aerospace industry outside of Atlanta. We test cars, airplanes, and almost anything else you can think of so the decision was a no-brainer for this car and airplane enthusiast. I do, however, miss the weather of the Pacific Northwest.

 

[Filo McShoe]

I was a military dependent growing up, mostly from Texas with some family in Tennessee. Lived all over, went to high school in Germany.
Went into the Air Force in 1973 sent 20 years with the last 8+ at Hurlburt Field in Florida in the 823rd Red Horse squadron. I already had 2 short tours overseas and when you get into the Horse you get a special duty identifier so the Air Force saw no reason to move me anymore.
I had lived here longer than any other place in my life so it was "home" to me. Now been here about 33 years and turning 65 in a couple of months so yep this is home by default.

 

[Targets Guy]

Born and raised in Iowa. Joined the Air Force and saw the world. Came back to Iowa 42 years later. Saw and still see no reason to leave or live anywhere else.

I would like to see Idaho again and do miss Colorado but not enough to move to either place again. My wife still has a house in Florida but she doesn't want to move back there.

 

[MetalMan]

Born in CT, educated in OH and found work there. Then, after 14 job-related moves/transfers, including a 2-year stint in Norway, I find myself settled back in Central OH.

Curious that both of my kids are now in CT. One did her graduate school there, found a job, married a local guy and is raising a family. My other is also in CT doing her residency in orthopaedic surgery (and then only God knows where she will end up).

While growing up in CT, my family had a small cottage on the shore and I many, many fond memories of spending my early summers there. Though, at times, I feel landlocked here in the Buckeye State, it's a relatively easy road trip to see the kids and get to the CT shore which I adore in all seasons.

While I have given much thought to moving back east permanently, the politics, deteriorating infrastructure and crowded conditions have relegated me to staying put....for now.

 

[bigwheelzip]

In the course of taking contract employment, we lived in 19 states and used that opportunity to explore 49 states (sorry Hawaii). We were even your neighbors in Cincinnati for a while, working on a job for Proctor & Gamble (Pampers).

We learned in our travels what was most important to us in a location, and retired to a place that ticked those boxes and was equidistant from our family members in FL, NY, and IL. The kids and grandkids are 700 miles away, but we see them more now during our visits as guests in their homes, than we did when we lived a mile from them (everyone is busy).