Leading up to a Suburban Existence

I became a suburbanite near the middle of my middle age. I planned never for this change to occur. For most of my adult life, I was an “intown” person. Back in Hometown, New York (w-a-a-a-a-y upstate), I grew up in a house on Main Street. We had a view of open pastures from our backyard, although my father’s house was right there in the village. Today, the view is much as it was, 30 years after my departure from Hometown. Fondly do I remember looking from my bedroom window onto that pastoral vista. This fondness was especially strong in my teen years, when I spent over a week during one of those short northern summers, with my canvas, easel and paints, rendering an oil painting of that landscape.

In spite of my rural wanderlust, I was still an intown sort of guy. Yes, we had this bucolic country view on the other side of the hedgerow, but I grew up only two blocks from downtown. In my choice to move away from home for my college years, I chose a school that was in a small town in western New York. My dormitory looked west, onto the idyllic farmlands of the Genesee River valley. Yet, behind me, lay the walkway to take me to the village of Geneseo. It was a small town, complete with a Main Street, but with many more sidewalk attractions than we had back in Hometown. The storefronts were entrances for submarine sandwich shops, pizzerias, record and book shops, and other requisite intown comforts. These were mere student-frequented businesses, for the most part, but I was well on my way to adapting to an urban lifestyle.

After my four years of university life, I joined the Peace Corps and moved to the West African nation of Ghana. My training was in a somewhat suburban school setting, but comfortably located within the city limits of Cape Coast. My final assignment plunked me smack-dab in the port city of Takoradi. The city had all the hustle and bustle, traffic, and commerce of a North American port city. The mystique of living in a busy seaport was heightened by the presence of sailors, seamen, and other attached port-related workers.

Following my return from Africa, I sought to begin my career in one of a handful of cities in New York State. In Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, and New York itself, my search for my desired career proved fruitless. The era will be less fondly remembered for its double-digit inflation than it will for it being the years when a toothy man from Georgia was the President of the United States.

Perhaps city life was not my destiny, as I answered a call to seek work in the oil fields of West Texas. A couple of my friends from Geneseo- - former students who had dropped out - - relocated to that region to earn their fortunes while working in the oil patch. I set off on a Greyhound trip across America to reach the sun-scorched plains west of Abilene. Population centers of any size were few and far between out in those parts.

The city that would be home for my next two years was Odessa. By reasonable standards, the town was big; its population was around 120,000. The development where I resided those first few months, with my college friends, certainly had all appearances of being suburban, but we were right inside Odessa’s city limits. We shared a ranch-style rental home on a street named Redbud. Nearby streets also bore names of trees, but few of the actual trees were ever to be found in the arid community.

When the boys chose to relocate back to New York, I opted to stay behind in Odessa. After all, I was gainfully employed by this time. So, as they packed up and moved out, I found an intown apartment that was closer to my job downtown, where I worked at the county hospital.

Near the end of these two years, I had developed some powerful enemies, who previously were powerful friends. Through some fault of my own, these once-kind souls decided to make threats, which made my life miserable. There were only a few people in whom I could confide. One member of this party threatened to have someone loyal to her do great harm to me. During this period, I earned the trust and sympathy of a fairy godmother, who had the means to spirit me far away, until the dust settled. I truly believed that I should follow the advice of my fairy godmother, and head back east.

And, so, spirited away was I. One day’s travels took me to Georgia, where for a couple months I lived with a foster family (of sorts) in a once-rural section of Forsyth County, roughly 30 miles northeast of Atlanta. Tranquility was a blessing for me as I lived there and surely much more peace for me, far-removed from my Texan unhappiness. At the time, across the road from my temporary home was one of the last dairy farms in that area. The rustic surroundings were just what I needed to take my mind off what I had left behind in Texas.

The issue of paramount importance was finding work and a new home in Atlanta. My sponsors also helped me relocate to midtown Atlanta, where I rented a one-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood less than thirty blocks northeast of downtown. The move there made it much easier to find my way to job interviews. Shortly thereafter, I began a 6-year career at Atlanta’s famed Emory University. I continued living “intown”, without a car. I relyed on my bicycle and the public transport system, MARTA, to get me to work and back home. At that time, I could barely conceive the onerous responsibilities of owning my own car. I remained carless for a long time.

I changed apartments three times thereafter, but I always remained within Atlanta’s city limits. Even after I purchased my own car, I wasn’t going to rely on it to get me to work every day. But, I did come to depend on the car, when, in 1988, I moved to Macon, about 85 miles southeast of Atlanta. Because the public transport was quite lacking in that area, I definitely needed a car. The house I moved into was on the shortest street in the city of Macon, with barely enough room for my own car, let alone my guests’ cars. But, my new home was so close to my workplace that I was able to ride my bike over there easily. If I allowed myself enough time, I could walk to work . . . less than two miles. I moved to one more house in Macon, and it was on a very busy street, located on a bus route. By that time, my career had changed, such that I could actually take the bus to my occasional work downtown.

The 1996 Summer Olympic Games were in preparation during my final years in Macon. As the Games’ beginnings approached, I was in search of opportunities to draw me back to Atlanta, and away from Macon. I’ll save those thoughts for my next posting.