A Few Thoughts After My First Month of Living in the Country Full Time
The Mayberry Chronicles continue
After 18 months of traveling from city to country and back, my relocation from DFW to East Texas has now been complete for a little over a month. During the long transition during my mom’s illness, her passing in January, and the decision that moving in with my 87-year-old stepfather was the best choice for everyone involved, I have chronicled various events both frightening and funny in my ongoing Mayberry Chronicles. Looking back over those articles this week revealed some surprises.
The biggest surprise shouldn’t be; things here are a lot slower than back home (I was born and raised in Dallas-Fort Worth and spent nearly 50 of my 58 years there; it will always be home). After leaving the Army in 1994, I stopped by my parents’ place on my way back from Georgia, intending to stay for a week or so; I left three years later with a wife and no clue where the time went. It’s even slower when you add in the fact that my schedule is now in synch with an octogenarian whose schedule last changed in 2001.
There have been benefits and drawbacks to this change of pace. I met exactly two of my neighbors in the apartment I lived in for five years; here, I run into someone I know pretty much everywhere I go (it helps that I go less…
