I came to live here at a very bad point in my life. We had been living the dream life I described before; we were headed 'back East' from California for our long-deserved stable home. At long last that one place to finally call 'home.'
That dream crashed just off I-70 in Columbia, Missouri. We had stopped for the night an hour away from St. Louis where dad's brother and mother were living. Dad died there. I will skip the details.
Both my dad and mom had been born in Pennsylvania. My father's father had been a doctor in western PA; my mom came from hardworking 'coal-crackers' in the central part of the state. I had only been here on infrequent weekend visits as I grew up. It was all new to me. It should have been no-big-deal as I had moved around my whole life. I knew what it was like to move into someplace where you don't know any body and are not related to anyone. That's how how everybody lives, right?
Wrong. The people I encountered when I got to school had all grown up with each other; their parents had, too. Their parents had, too. Their parents had, too. It was a tough time in my life personally; tough cultural adjustment, too.
My first day in the new school here kids would approach and ask, 'Where are you from?' I'd smile and say, 'I moved here from California.' They would take two steps back with wide-eyes and say, 'Oh, we know all about you people from out there.' I'd ask, 'Have you been there?' They would say, 'No.' I'd ask, 'ever been out west?' Again they would say, 'No.' I would ask, 'how far west have you been?' They would pause, think for a moment and answer, 'York.'
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