Twenty years ago, today, me and my carpet bag arrived in New Port Richey.
I called my friends from a gas station pay phone on the corner of US 19 and FL 54 to come guide me to their house from there.
Those friends are gone, having moved back to Iowa and deciding that my talking about them here truthfully made them look bad, never wish to speak to me again.
The gas station is also long gone. There's a Wawa there now, but for many years there was nothing at that corner.
Even though I once thought of myself as an Iowan, it's clear that I haven't even lived most of my life there.
Even though I was born in Iowa, my first 11 years were in Illinois. Then 4 years in Iowa, then 2 in Minnesota, then 2 in Iowa then 3 in The Army then 8 in Iowa.
11 years in Illinois.
2 years in Minnesota.
3 years all over the world.
12 years in Iowa, total.
20 years in Florida.
I'm a Floridian now. Perhaps never a proper cracker, but a Floridian.
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Sorry, it has to be said:
ReplyDeleteFlorida Man.
My wife's dad is from cracker stock. My wife herself is a born-and-raised Floridian, having spent her entire life living there until moving away for graduate school, when we met.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's mother moved to Florida from New Jersey in her mid twenties, after graduating from nursing school. She says she moved because she was tired of being cold.
I think in some ways, she's more of a Floridian than my wife or her dad. Its almost as if being from a more northern locale is part of the stereotype.
Yeah, we're not 'tied' to one piece of land anymore... Military career, lived all over... sigh
ReplyDelete