Where Are You From?

I was standing in my front yard, taking a little rest from mowing with my push mower.  A young woman with a small child and an equally small dog on a leash stopped to chat.  Earlier, she had shouted to me, asking if I wanted to borrow her mower, meaning a gas-driven machine.  I called back, “No, I’m all right with this one.”  Some of my neighbors are concerned when they see me mowing with this push mower.  They think that the mowing process is too strenuous, too hard on my “getting-on-in-years” body.  

The young woman had continued her walk with her child and the dog into the little greenspace we have at the end of our street.  On her way back, she stopped to talk to me.  I explained to her that I had bought this mower instead of a gas-driven one a few years ago because I was tired of dealing with the gas-driven monsters.  I explained that the mower had a gear system that gave it much more power than it appeared to have.  I could push normally, but the gear system made my thrust much stronger.

We then exchanged personal information, like how long had she lived in the neighborhood.  (Two years)  How long had I lived in the neighborhood.  (Since 1989)  I had seen a couple of generations of children grow up in that time.  I was an old-timer now.  But I said that I was not a native Kentuckian.  That brought the inevitable question:  Where are you from?  I hesitated because it is complicated.  She smiled, noting that I might say something like, “All over.”  She was partially right.  I explained that I was born in California, but my family had moved to a farm in Missouri when I was 10.  So I grew up partly in California and partly in Missouri.  She asked, “Where in California?”  I replied that I was born in Long Beach, and that we had moved to Missouri from Compton, CA.  

She remarked, “That would have been a big change.”  I nodded that it was.

It is always hard for me to say where I am from.  I want to say, “Which decade are we talking about?”  I have lived in a lot of different places.  When someone says, I am from New Jersey, I might say that I lived in South Jersey for a couple of years.  I talk about Kansas City, MO although I never actually lived in that city, but lived in suburbs on the Kansas side.  I talk about Washington, DC--we lived in Reston, VA for a couple of years.  I lived in Lamoni, Iowa and Lawrence, Kansas while attending school.

A lot of people here in Kentucky learn that I am a Kansas Jayhawk’s fan because I have a degree from the University of Kansas, and they think that I am from Kansas.  Not true.  I attended KU as an out-of-state student because my family was living in Harrisonville, Missouri at that time.  I majored in Music Education.  I got married on Baccalaureate Sunday before my KU graduation, and my husband and I moved to the Kansas City area because he had a job there.  We lived in Kansas City, Kansas, Lenexa Kansas, and Overland Park, Kansas during the first 12 years of our marriage.  Then, my husband was transferred by his job to South Jersey in the Philadelphia, PA area.

I considered those years of living in the Kansas City suburbs as really living in Kansas City, MO, which was the major city of the Greater Kansas City Area.  Our newspaper, our radio and TV, all came from Kansas City, Missouri.  My husband’s job was in KC, MO.  On the few occasions that we went out “on the town” it was to restaurants or night spots in Kansas City, Missouri.

The State of Kansas was a dry state until they finally passed package liquor laws.  After that, you could buy liquor, wine and beer in the State-run packaged liquor stores.  But you could not have cocktails or wine with your dinner in a restaurant located in Kansas.  Consequently, there were no fine restaurants in Kansas; they were all in Missouri.   There were family-oriented restaurants where parents and children could have Sunday dinner after church.  But these were not the same as the fine-dining establishments that existed on the Missouri side.

I should clarify that I, personally, did not have alcoholic drinks with dinner because I was brought up in a teetotaler culture.  My husband, on the other hand, had no religious scruples against having a drink now and then.  My comment was meant to state that the liquor laws in Missouri and Kansas dictated that Kansas City, Missouri would develop as the cultural center of the area. 

I thought I would never leave Kansas City.  I had family nearby; some cousins who lived in Independence, MO and my parents who lived in Harrisonville, MO--about 45 miles south of Kansas City.  We lived in Johnson County, Kansas where the homes were nice and the schools were excellent.  I was busy as a housewife, mother, a young matron supposedly dedicated to home and family.  I was also active as an organist and children’s choir director in my church, part of a volunteer music staff.  I taught private piano lessons to children in my home.  

My husband came home from work one night in mid-1970 with the news that he was being transferred to the company headquarters in Camden, New Jersey.  He was a CPA and worked as the Treasurer of Citywide Mortgage Company, a small mortgage operation owned by Associated Mortgage Cos. which was based in Camden.  He would be an assistant to the Treasurer of that company.  His job in Kansas City was being eliminated as Associated Mortgage consolidated its management of small mortgage operations that they owned.  If he didn’t take the transfer, he would have to look for a job elsewhere.

The news completely upset my world.  Jim half-heartedly looked around for another job, but there didn’t seem to be one readily available.  An older friend, a sort-of mentor to Jim, advised him to take the transfer and then look for another job if he didn’t like his new situation.  He said that it was better to look for a job from a position of strength (I have a job but am looking for something better) than of weakness (I was laid off and am now desperate).  This same man called me at 7:00 am one morning and talked to me about the church environment in the Philadelphia area, reassuring me that we would be all right if we moved to New Jersey.  The man was a member of my church. and knew that this was important to me.

So, Jim took the transfer and we moved.  The whole process was difficult as we had to sell a house and buy one.  The company helped us out by paying for a couple of trips to New Jersey for both of us so we could look for a house to buy.  It is difficult to figure out where you want to live when you know nothing about the area.  We bought a four-bedroom house in Ramblewood, a subdivision in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, Burlington County. 

This move wrenched me away from the familiar place I had created for myself through my KU music degree, my marriage, and my church affiliations.  It led to a couple of other moves for the family that ended when we moved to Lexington, Kentucky--a totally alien culture to me.  I speak now of my “other” life which occurred before we came to Lexington, and of my life since coming here.  My Lexington life led me into new directions that I probably would not have followed if I had stayed in the Kansas City area.  I had to search deep within myself for the spiritual strength to deal with the challenges of this new life.

Now, 40 years later, I am standing in my yard talking to a young woman who has moved  with her husband to Lexington from Seattle, Washington.  She is beginning her life here.  I am closer to the end of mine.  I have no clear path out of Lexington, and I seem to keep busy here.  But I am lonely with no family nearby.  I am not sure what comes next, but it might be interesting.  (“Interesting” is my newest word for things that might actually be shocking or gut-wrenching or game-changing, but I don’t want to reveal how unsettled I really am.)