Coming To The Mountains
February 4, 2020
After living in Tennessee, Hawaii, and Tennessee again, my family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, when I was ten years old. Though I did live again in Hawaii for a few years and California for a few years, I lived most of my adult life in Jacksonville, Florida. Although I had life’s usual experiences, and was somewhat prosperous and accepted there, I never felt at home in Jacksonville. I always felt like it was a duty station for me, somewhere God wanted me to be. I left several times, but was always drawn back. What my purpose there was, I don’t know. I tried to be a good person and help others when I could.
I was very happy in Hawaii, when I lived in Hilo, on the Big Island, when I was in the second and third grade in 1955 and 1956. If you have ever been to Hawaii, you know it is a magical place. We came back to Tennessee in 1956 when my Mother was homesick. I returned to Honolulu in 1973, and lived there for three years. When I got off the plane in 1973, I had a feeling of exultation, I had grabbed the brass ring, and I was home. I stayed until 1976, when I fell in love with Sharon Hodel, a girl from Sacramento, California, and I moved back to the mainland.
In 2012, my wife Karen visited her sister Sandy in Clayton, Georgia, where Sandy and her husband Warren, had a condo. Karen was also from Jacksonville, though she had travelled around some too. Karen fell in love with the mountains and asked me to come up and see how I felt about retiring in the area. I did and the Appalachians spoke to me as much as they did to Karen. Although I had spent most of my life near the ocean and was strongly attached to beach life, I was able to let that go, and embrace mountain living.
Maybe because I was born in Knoxville, or maybe I was ready for a change, I don’t know. Maybe I had fulfilled my purpose in Florida, and was released to begin a new life. At any rate, I am very happy with my life now and feel that I have come home. If I outlive my wife, Karen, I think about going back to Hawaii to go home there too.
