Where are you from?

Before I even get started on today's post I have issues.  I chose the title because that's what people always ask.  Yet the English grammar student in me rebels, and I sternly lecture myself, "do NOT end a sentence with a preposition!"  So, how to rephrase it?  Whence do you come?  I doubt anyone has used whence in a sentence during the last century unless they were writing poetry.  From where do you come?  Sounds a little awkward, doesn't it?  You come from where?  That sounds as if I have just told someone I hail from the planet Baltar and they are questioning my sanity.  So we're just gonna have to go with the title as originally written.  If it grates on you as it does on me, so be it.  By the way, I usually write like I talk.  I don't think I have ever in my life said I am going to do something.  It has always been gonna and if that isn't a real word, well it should be.


Whenever anyone asks me whence I come (I so love being asinine at times), my answer is invariably "the east coast".  Somehow, this is not the answer they were seeking.  Apparently, it is customary to narrow your origins to a city, or maybe a state, or possibly even a geographic region such as the southeast, but "the east coast" seems to be beyond the expectations of most people (or at least the ones I have encountered).  Truly, the first half of my life was spent moving, and I have lived from Florida to Maine on the east coast.  The Beach Boys thought the east coast was a usable location and said so in song.  Allow me to quote the opening lyrics to their song California Girls. (Time for a minor rant.  When researching these lyrics to be sure I remembered them correctly, the phrase "make you feel all right" was written "make you feel alright".  Alright is not a word though it is used universally.  All right is just like all wrong; two words!  Alright is all wrong.)

Well east coast girls are hip
I really dig those styles they wear
And the southern girls with the way they talk
They knock me out when I'm down there
The midwest farmer's daughters really make you feel all right
And the northern girls with the way they kiss
They keep their boyfriends warm at night


The only category I missed out on in those lyrics was the midwest (and I can assure you I am no farmer's daughter).  I don't know how hip I was, and I can guarantee you I was never particularly stylish unless I was wearing something I borrowed from one of my sisters. I did talk "southern" until I was 12 years old but that's when I became a northern girl and needed to be learning to kiss boys and keep them warm.  Anyway, I believe east coast encompasses both southern girls and northern girls.  I mean, really!  Have you looked at a map?  Geography is not one of my better subjects, but I'm pretty sure the east coast has a northern end and a southern end.  And, once again, I am far off topic.


I believe I hail from the east coast -- the whole east coast.  When I was born my family lived in Pine Lake, Georgia.  Pine Lake is a really small, eclectic artsy community about 15 miles northeast of Atlanta, but back in 1948 it was just a bunch of little bungalow type homes around a lake.  According to my mother, her parents were among the original residents of Pine Lake and her father (being a Baptist minister) was instrumental in the establishment of the Baptist Church in Pine Lake.  My grandparents also owned and operated a general store.  In 1948, those 15 miles were a lot further away from Atlanta than they are now.  I was born in Crawford W. Long Hospital in Atlanta.  Some of the stories of my birth are riotous, and I will get around to relating them eventually.  I have no idea if any of them are true.  


At the time of my birth, my father was "away".  It was not uncommon for him to be "away"; he was "away" more than he was home.  I was almost born in Mississippi (which is not on the east coast).  Apparently, after my brother Joe's birth, my father moved the family and one of the stops along the way was Mississippi; either Tupelo or Biloxi, I can't recall which my mother said.  If I were to choose, I would choose Biloxi simply because it's on the Gulf.  Tupelo is stuck in some God forsaken part of the south.  The only thing that ever happened of note in Tupelo was Elvis' birth.  Possibly my brother, Harry, remembers.  He would have been about nine at the time.  I remember where we lived when I was nine, so maybe I should check with him and see if he remembers.  Glenn would have only been four, so it isn't likely he has much memory of Mississippi.   In any event, my father dumped my pregnant mom and my three brothers somewhere in Mississippi and went off to wherever it was that he went when he disappeared.  My mom assumed this was the end.  Unfortunately, she was wrong, but in any event she enlisted the support of her family and we all moved back to Georgia before my debut.  My father showed up in Georgia when I was about 18 months old.


When I was two years old, my father moved the family to Southern Florida.  I say Southern Florida simply because we lived in a number of places in and around the Miami area.  My sisters were born in Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami when I was four.  My father pulled his final disappearing act when my sisters were nine months old, and our family stayed in the Miami area (again in more than a few locations) until I was 12.  Then my mother got a wild hair and decided to move us all to New Jersey.  We stopped for several months in Daytona Beach where one of my mother's sisters lived.  She owned an apartment building just a block off the beach.  My aunt had back surgery and my mom stayed to help her until she was back on her feet again.  We had a blast; what a great place for three young girls to be allowed to just be young girls.  None of the boys were with us.  Harry was grown and living on his own.  Glenn was, I believe, in the Army.  And Joe was in one of the many detention homes for juvenile delinquents that he frequented in his youth.  But eventually my Aunt recovered and we finished our move to New Jersey.


I lived in New Jersey from the time I was almost 13 until I was almost 21.  The first year I was there all the other kids made fun of my southern accent.  We all know a southern accent is so much more pleasing than a New Jersey accent, but peer pressure is a terrible thing.  I worked, and practiced, and orated endlessly until my southern accent was gone.  But fortunately only a few of my spoken words will give away the fact that I lived in New Jersey.  I think I no longer have any accent at all, but after living in North Carolina for the last 30 years, it is possible some of that southern charm has crept back into my spoken words.   Over the summer of 1964, I moved to New York City (actually Brighton Beach in Brooklyn) to help my brother Harry take care of his family.  My sister-in-law had some health problems and was hospitalized, so I moved to New York to help out.  Harry and Sarah had three young children at the time and they were a handful.  But New York was fantastic and Brighton Beach was within walking distance of Coney Island.  What a fun place for a teenager to be!


When I was almost 21, I enlisted in the U. S. Navy and they sent me to Maryland for basic training.  I stayed in Maryland after basic to receive training for my specialty.  My one and only duty assignment after completing the training was to Norfolk, Virginia. At least it was near the beach.  I have stories galore about being in the Navy, but they are for another time.  A few months before my enlistment was up I married a man who had been born and raised in the state of Maine.  The marriage was doomed to failure for a host of reasons, but as soon as we were both discharged from the Navy, we moved to New Hampshire so he could complete his college education.   The little town we lived in was directly on the border with Maine, divided by only a very small river.  I could easily toss a stone across from New Hampshire into Maine.  We spent a lot of time in Maine since that's where his family was, so though I did not actually ever reside in Maine, I count it as one of the places I am "from".  The New England area is fantastically beautiful in fall and winter, but I am a southerner by nature.  It's just too damn cold.


From New Hampshire we moved to New Jersey (again!).  When the marriage went south, so did I.  I moved to Georgia (again!).  As I've mentioned, I took a job in Georgia and the next day they moved me to Maryland (again!).  Bud and I moved to North Carolina late in 1980.  I had no reason to believe I would stay here any longer than I had any other place along the way, but I was wrong.  The second half of my life has been spent all in one place.  I guess I call North Carolina home.  I've been here longer than I was ever any place else.  But if you ask me where I'm from, the answer is gonna be the east coast.