Where am I from?

You know the “hometown” space on Facebook? I have no idea what to put there.  Seems like a relatively simple decision, right? But is it where I was born? Where I grew up? Where I live currently? Ok, I know it’s not the last one as I’ve only lived in Charlotte for a couple of years and plus, Facebook has a whole different spot for “current city” so that’s how you know it’s different.

So if my hometown is where I was born then it’s Marquette in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 

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Both of my parents grew up in Michigan, my mother in a small town not far from the Mackinaw Bridge and my father farther down state, as they say, in Midland. We only lived in Marquette long enough for my younger brother and I to be born there. I don’t think I was quite two years old when we moved. To Salt Lake City, Utah. Right? I’ll explain. My dad is one of those people who actually did the job he daydreamed about when he was twelve, making movies. As he tells it, he read every book in Midland’s little public library about cinema, made monster movies with his friends and learned all he could about any type of camera. It all paid off. After working for a small movie studio in Wisconsin, Hollywood came calling, thus the move.

Salt Lake was the stepping-stone and we spent a few years living in what I’ve been told was the cutest little house with equal views of the neighborhood park and the mountains. But my dad’s gigs in Los Angeles were becoming more and more frequent so we packed up again and moved to Hollywood. We lived in an apartment just a few blocks from Paramount Pictures. Dad worked on movies, commercials and music videos while Mom managed the building where we lived. It was, as the photos demonstrate, a great time. A fabulous variety of fresh foods, unique restaurants and celebrity sightings combine with perfect weather almost outweighed the cost of living and hazards of a large city. Almost. We were living in Hollywood in April of 1992 when the Rodney King riots broke out. My mother put her foot down when she realized the evening news did not have Smell-O-Vision; we could smell the smoke from our home. A brief stay in a hotel and my parents decided to move to Kansas City where my father’s brother and his family were living.

If my hometown is defined by where I grew up, it’s definitely Kansas City, Missouri. We moved to Kansas City just after I turned five years old. We moved around the metro area a couple times but the greater Kansas City area is, I think, the closest thing I have to a hometown. I grew up on great barbecue, terrible sports teams and hundred degree summers.

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Now, as I mentioned way up there, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina while Boyfriend gets his Master's degree. But! We're moving again. Why, you ask? I want to live closer than a plane ride away from the fam and Boyfriend has found a PhD program that tickles his fancy so, we're off to Indiana this summer. Here, I hope to share the adventures of moving and settling once again. Welcome!