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How Did You End Up Where You Are?

How did you end up living where you do?

  • Entirely by your own choice.

    Votes: 13 16.9%

  • Moved for work.

    Votes: 5 6.5%

  • A mix of work and choice.

    Votes: 6 7.8%

  • Because of family.

    Votes: 13 16.9%

  • A mix of work, family, and choice.

    Votes: 17 22.1%

  • Through a complex string of specific and random circumstances.

    Votes: 23 29.9%
  • Total voters
    77
#22
Gaolee said:
I grew up in rural Ohio with a heavy dose of time in the hills of western North Carolina. Went to college on the east coast, and after graduating in 1982, discovered that Ohio was the rust belt and that recessions suck. So I moved to NYC, figuring somebody would hire me eventually, and drove a cab there in the mean time. Somebody hired me, and I met my wife. She's from London, which makes us highly unlikely. Only in New York. After five years or so, we decided that we wanted to raise a family, and NYC was not the place to do it. We decided that we were going to move to LA or Seattle, at least for a while. We moved to Seattle more than 30 years ago and have been here ever since.

We are the people who started ruining this place by moving here. It is ruined completely now. Go away. Really. It's true. We are all boring and it rains all the time. Actually, the reason not to move here now is because it has become insanely expensive. Chances are we would live somewhere else if we were leaving NYC now.
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Similar for me as well. In 1984 I decided that nothern Vermont was just too danged cold and targeted three potential new homes: Berkely, Eugene, and Seattle. Seattle won easily, and several years later I took up windsurfing, discovered the Columbia River Gorge, and acted on my general distaste for big cities as long term living places. I've lived within a couple of hundred yards of my original house here for over thirty years now. And yeah, The Gorge sucks horribly now too and no one in their right mind would even condsider living here.
 
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#23
I have lived in several other states but I have resided back in my home state for the past 3 decades, Ironically in the town I grew up in and about two miles from the house I grew up in, winters still suck for the most part.
 
#24
Passinwind said:
Similar for me as well. In 1984 I decided that nothern Vermont was just too danged cold and targeted three potential new homes: Berkely, Eugene, and Seattle. Seattle won easily, and several years later I took up windsurfing, discovered the Columbia River Gorge, and acted on my general distaste for big cities as long term living places. I've lived within a couple of hundred yards of my original house here for over thirty years now. And yeah, The Gorge sucks horribly now too and no one in their right mind would even condsider living here.
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Nobody should even visit. In fact, don't even think about it. Nope, don't even look at it!
 
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#25
Born and raised in Western NY, can't see myself living anywhere else. Most of my family left here for greener pastures, I'm opposed to change and decided to stay put.
 
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#26
Chargin' Charlie.jpg
I ended up in Las Vegas because of this guy - Chargin' Charlie. Charlie's the emblem, and RED HORSE is the acronym, for the Air Force's Combat Engineer squadrons. Completely self contained; combat trained, and qualified with every small arm the USAF has; and deployable anywhere, any time. You really have to know your job to get in, and they're pretty picky about who they'll take. And, once they do get their hands on you? They've got you any time they want you, until you quit; retire; or die... There are only 4 active RH squadrons since the Vietnam War ended. One at Hurlburt Field in Florida; one in Korea; one at Malmstrom AFB in Montana (I was in that one when it was in the UK); and one here, at Nellis AFB. I bounced between them for a lot of my career. I came to Nellis from Korea in 1983; went to the unit in the UK in 1987; and came back here to Nellis in 1990. I stayed here when I retired at the end of 1992 because my wife (also in the Air Force) was stationed here. Our plan was for me to get a job; she would go to school to finish her degree when she retired. After she did that, she would get a job, and I would go back to school for an advanced degree. After that? We would both get the Hell out of here. Didn't quite work out that way, though. After she finished school, she decided she wanted a divorce; the 640 acres in Nebraska; and to go home to her Mommy - in Nebraska. So, I wound up here with a dead end job; one hell of a mortgage; and a ratty, clapped out '66 Ford Fairlane 500 (the car she "just had to have"). That was in 1998, and I've been stuck in this cesspool ever since. But, the mortgage is paid off (finally); that POS Ford is long gone; my finances are lookin' good; and if this Pandemic crap ends in time? I'll be out of here by the end of this year. Assuming this 69 yo old fart is still alive...:whistle:
 
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#27
GIBrat51 said:
View attachment 3780037 I ended up in Las Vegas because of this guy - Chargin' Charlie. Charlie's the emblem, and RED HORSE is the acronym for the Air Force's Combat Engineer squadrons. Completely self contained; combat trained, and qualified with every small arm the USAF has; and deployable anywhere, any time. You really have to know your job to get in, and they're pretty picky about who they'll take. And, once they do get their hands on you? They've got you any time they want you, until you quit; retire; or die... There are only 4 active RH squadrons since the Vietnam War ended. One at Hurlburt Field in Florida; one in Korea; one at Malmstrom AFB in Montana (I was in that one when it was in the UK); and one here, at Nellis AFB. I bounced between them for a lot of my career. I came to Nellis from Korea in 1983; went to the unit in the UK in 1987; and came back here to Nellis in 1990. I stayed here when I retired at the end of 1992 because my wife (also in the Air Force) was stationed here. Our plan was for me to get a job; she would go to school to finish her degree when she retired; after she did that, she would get a job, and I would go back to school for an advanced degree. After that? We would both get the Hell out of here. Didn't quite work out that way, though. After she finished school, she decided she wanted a divorce; the 640 acres in Nebraska; and to go home to her Mommy - in Nebraska. So, I wound up here with a dead end job; one hell of a mortgage; and a ratty, clapped out '66 Ford Fairlane 500 (the car she "just had to have"). That was in 1998, and I've been stuck in this cesspool ever since. But, the mortgage is paid off (finally); that POS Ford is long gone; my finances are lookin' good; and if this Pandemic crap ends in time? I'll be out of here by the end of this year. Assuming this 69 yo old fart is still alive...:whistle:
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I love visiting Vegas. I've been there 5 times, the latest visit last month before this pandemic really blew up.
 
#28
Erie PA > Western VA > SLO CA > Seattle > Ithaca NY.

Stayed in Erie through college. Followed a girl to VA. Wanderlust took us west. Got married, moved to Seattle. 10 great years up there, professionally, socially and musically. Had a kid and moved back East. We looked at many towns, from MA to NC, but we both landed jobs in Ithaca. Love this hip little college town, and making some great music here too!
 
#30
Since 93:
- off - roading (Jeeps)
- snowmobiling
- playing live music
- off - roading (atv's)
- street motorcycle
- mountain bikes
- observed trials motorcycling
- target shooting
- white water power boating (Hells Canyon is 2 /12 hours away)

Everything I've ever wanted to do is close by, no regrets... To me, living here, doing what I enjoy was more important than the 'day job'...
 
#32
Army brat. Don't really do roots. Rest of the family moved back to the tribe. But I kept moving on every few years. Met my wife and took her with me a couple of times. We broke up 30 years ago and I moved over here. Then she followed me over. So I stayed still cos she's not really the pack up and go type after all. If I do have roots, they're her.

Now I got a house and a half and grandkids with all the trimmings. Probably a good thing really. World now is different from the one I grew up in. Less forgiving. S'pose there was always the iwi if it didn't work out. My people gone corporate now. And not a casino in sight.
 
#33
Been in Michigan my whole life with the exception of when our family moved to San Diego from summer of '59 to summer of '62. I've been in my house since June 24 of 1991 and can't imagine living anywhere else. It's mostly smaller homes in my subdivision (mine included) and I love the "come as you are" vibe of the place. Lots of small lakes in my area including one that's visible from my front deck. About a 2 minute walk from my house.
 
#35
Stewie26 said:
Born and raised here. Never wanted to live anywhere else. There are so many things one can do here plus a nice climate.
View attachment 3779414
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Born and raised in Redondo Beach and spent many evenings up in Palos Verdes... in '82-'83 I started going down a path that would have ultimately been short and final... Had a brother living in Oregon who could get me a job and a roof over my head, which basically saved my life. Married, couple kids, stability. For me, SoCal was a great place to be from...

-robert
 
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#37
I did try to leave, I applied for citizenship in Brobdingnag, but alas, all I could say, was of no worth...

“He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.

His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels 1726.
 
#38
I grew up in New Hampshire, my parents were here. Went different places for school and work, got married in NYC.

In 2007 I was finishing a postdoc out in Indiana at Notre Dame and had a tenure-track job offer at a college in Oklahoma. But right about the same time my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer. I checked around NH colleges and UNH had a one-year position. My mother-in-law had died a couple of years before and my wife had had to say goodbye to her over the phone, which was hard. So when we got the news about Dad, she asked me, "Which decision do you think you're more likely to end up regretting?" So I took the UNH job to be near Dad, and was with him when he passed a year and a half later.

I kept applying to college jobs nationwide, but this was recession era, and in its aftermath a lot fewer schools were hiring. I kept on teaching on one-year and adjunct capacities, meanwhile my wife became a library director here and we wound up staying in place.
 
#40
Bass Viking said:
I love visiting Vegas. I've been there 5 times, the latest visit last month before this pandemic really blew up.
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The key word in that statement is "VISITING". The whole place was specifically created for, and is run for, people who are "visiting". Unless you are filthy, stinkin' rich? Trust me; you do not want to LIVE here. I won't speak about the local politics, 'cause it ain't allowed. I probably can't talk about the police or the school system, either... I'll just say that, if you are a middle, or lower middle-class working stiff? You don't want to live here a minute longer than you have to... Vegas will grind you into powder, and wipe you off it's hands...:rollno::rollno:
 
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