Another Year on this Planet

At exactly 9:01 AM PST on this date in 1964, I was dragged kicking and screaming into this world. I came into existence at Hemet Valley Hospital in Riverside County, California. You left-coasters likely know Hemet as a booming retirement community near Palm Springs, and as home to the Ramona Pageant.

I spent my first few years living in San Diego before my folks moved us back to Indiana in 1969. Back in those days, it was actually cheaper to live in CA than IN, if you actually could score a job. My dad was roughly the same age that I am now, and had left the Navy. Although he was a jack of all trades, from mason to school teacher, jobs were scarce and the California Dream crashed hard for our family. Sometimes you just have to go home again. . .and so we did.

Somewhat ironically, we moved to southwest Allen County where my dad's family (The Good's and Buskirk's) resided initially, but then placed our future on the strong growth trend on the southeast side, and moved to a brand new subdivision called Southwick Village in 1970. International Harvester was a HUGE local employer in the area, and most of it's employee's resided in this booming part of Fort Wayne. East Allen County Schools was considered among the top school systems in the state at that time, and I know that my parents were proud to have placed me into that system. Who could have foreseen that, just 12 years later, IH would pull out of Fort Wayne completely and shut down the growth in that part of our city?

I stayed, and watched the area slowly die over the course of twenty years before finally moving my family back to where my ancestry began here locally, Aboite Township. I still hope for the best for the area in which I grew up in; I still own my boyhood home there. And things are finally begining to improve there, thanks to the efforts of Mayor Richard and numerous others. I'll always miss my childhood home, and my history there; but I'm thankful for my ability to provide a home for my kids in a neighborhood that's more like the one that I grew up in back in the 1970's. We do what we have to do for our families, whatever our personal regrets may be.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my short history and rant about my childhood home. I will be celebrating the anniversary of my eventual demise with many close friends on Saturday; I wish you all could make it, but parking IS limited. ;)