So, Where Are You From?

Where I'm From...

In an e-mail exchange with a good friend of mine, we were discussing our New England roots. But his Dad was career military and he himself is career military, so the concept of where he's "from" is probably a lot different from the concept where I'm "from." Where I was born and raised was pretty much the same place for over twenty years. His experience of growing up, like that of my progeny, is no doubt different from mine. For the children of career military folks tend not to stay in one place for very long. (And in the military, four years is considered "long.")

So my friend and all three of my kids are "military brats," i.e. the children of career military parent(s).

So the concept of where one is from has been on my mind lately.

I can say that I am from Vermont, born and raised. The Missus Herself can say that she is from Korea, born and raised. The kids on the other hand?

The Naviguesser was born in Korea, then lived in Colorado, Mississippi, Nebraska and then Germany. Until he went to college. In New England. Ask my son where he's from, he'll say "New England" - I'm not sure if he claims Massachusetts as his adopted home, but the Red Sox ball cap he wears out there in California makes people think he's from Massachusetts. He could claim Rhode Island if he wanted to, though he didn't spend much time here between being in college and then being in the Navy.

Shortly after his discharge from the Navy, he followed Horace Greeley's advice.

Now The Nuke was born in Aurora, Colorado and lived in that fine state until the age of 4 and a half. Then she did the Mississippi, Nebraska, Germany track, followed by high school in Rhode Island and college in Massachusetts (same alma mater as her brother). Now she's in the Navy. I do believe she tells folks she's from Rhode Island. Kind of...

The WSO was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming (we were living in Colorado at the time), then she followed the same course as The Nuke, more or less. Mississippi, Nebraska, Germany, followed by high school in Rhode Island and college in Massachusetts. She went to college in the same town as her older siblings, but a different institution of higher learning than the older two.  She's always gone her own way. The two older siblings are Surface Warfare Officers, The WSO is a Naval Flight Officer. She tells folks that she's from Rhode Island.

Oddly enough The Missus Herself will, from time to time, tell people that she claims Colorado as her "home state" (every American should have one and The Missus Herself worked hard to become an American) as that was the first place we lived when we were reassigned from Korea back to what we always called "State-side," some of the old-timers of my acquaintance would refer to the US of A as "CONUS" - which is (of course) an acronym standing for CONtinental United States.

One real old-timey Master Sergeant I worked with in Korea when I was a mere sprig of a Staff Sergeant always referred to CONUS as "the ZI." Pronounced zee-eye, this not really an acronym, it's simply an abbreviation for Zone of the Interior. Which is what they called CONUS back during World War II. I can't vouch for that, I wasn't there. While I am "old," I am not that old.

Now this whole "where are you from" thing gets interesting in small town New England. While I may have known this growing up in a smallish town in New England (I say smallish because back then we had a population of 10,000 people, nearby towns were smaller) I didn't really think of it until I retired from the Big Blue Machine and moved to Rhode Island.

I have had a few denizens of this region look down their noses at me and say "oh, you're not from here are you?" As if the ability to be born, raised, live and die all in the same town is a huge accomplishment. Seriously?

Then to brag about how your ancestors did the exact same thing. In other words, it's an uninterrupted line of people who were all born, raised, lived and died in the same town.

Of course, there had to be at least one ancestor who couldn't say they had lived in the same place their entire life.

So at some point in time there had to have been a family member who stepped off the boat, looked into the wilderness and heard...

"You're not from around here, are you?"

I am sure that the original inhabitants of New England would have preferred that our ancestors had all stayed back in Europe, Africa or Asia and left them alone. But they didn't. They migrated and moved to a new land. Made lives for themselves and their descendants. So that one day, those self-same descendants could look at someone new and say...

"You're not from around here, are you?"

The street where I grew up.

Nope, I'm not from around here.