the gravity of home

When I grew up, we never lived in one place to very long. My dad was in the Air Force, so we moved every 3 or 4 years. By the time I was 14 we had lived in Washington D.C., Germany, Upper Michigan, California and Pennsylvania. When he retired, we settled in Pennsylvania, just as I started high school at 14. For me, that just meant one more 4 year stop before I went to college...another 4 year stop. What I'm getting at is that even though my parents put down roots in Pennsylvania, I never really did. I lived in one town in Pennsylvania for a year and a half when I was in grade school, another in Pennsylvania for 4 years of high school, and yet another through 4 years of college, and left. I go back to visit, but there's no draw calling me back to the family homestead.

All this came back to me last night. I received, in the mail, a directory from Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a.k.a. my old high school (yes, Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, Catholic university - I'm pretty well indoctrinated and therefore slightly mentally disturbed). Names, addresses and whatever current information was supplied by the individuals, for every class going back to the graduates in 1919. I was in the class of 1975 (yes I am that old), by the way, along with about 350 others. I spent last night looking up names I remember, just to see where they are now. It was interesting, and brought back a lot of memories, of the 4 years I spent there growing through the awkwardness of adolescence, but what struck me is how most of the people I knew never ventured far from home (or returned, after forays into the wide wide world). Here I am in Florida, and there are some others who traveled, but the vast majority stayed right there. I guess if you grow up there, there's more of a tendency to stay with what you know, but honestly, the longest I've lived anywhere in my life, by a pretty huge margin, is here in the Jacksonville area, and I have no compulsion to move back north. When I got out of college, I spent quite a few years as a pilot in the Navy, so again, I didn't stay in one place longer than 3 years, and finished my Navy years here, which is probably why we stayed, because I was sick of moving. We've lived in different houses, from the beach to closer into town, to now, a bit south, but still....we've been here 18 years. This is the closest thing I've ever had to putting down roots somewhere, and I've grown comfortable with it. Part of that may very well be, after moving so many times already ion my life, I have no desire to do it again. Moving sucks. If you count the years I was at college as living at home with my parents, that would be the second longest contiguous streak of time I lived anywhere, but still....8 years doesn't generate a whole lot of gravity calling me back like it appears to have done with most of my classmates.