The Hunt Begins: Release the Hounds!

OK…. I’m now retiring and I’ve decided to move out of New Jersey, the land of milk and ornery. To top it all off Kat decided to go with me! Praise Jesus! Now all I needed was a final destination.
If I had any second thoughts about all of this, it ended about three days after my decision to get out of NJ. I went into a store…….. I’ll leave out the name to protect the guilty. Anyway, I couldn’t find what I was looking for. I came across a store associate. For those of you who don’t know, a “store associate” is a politically correct way of describing a worker who talks to themselves saying, "Lehman Brothers my ass!". Anyway, I walked up to that person and waited to get her attention. She finally looked at me and……JESUS! She had a face on that made me think that someone had peed in her wheaties! "Yea........Whatta you want?" I was so stunned I just mumbled, “Never mind”, and walked away thinking, “DAMN! That woman owns flying monkeys and she isn’t afraid to use them!”
The destination should be ruled by those things we want out of life. So Kat and I sat down and tried to figure out just what we were looking for, as far as a new place to live is concerned. It turned into a very short list.
A slower life style. I wasn’t looking for comatose, but I don’t want a defibrillator to make a deadline…….”CLEAR!” ZAP……..”OK get me that report!”
A gentle balance between country living and access to various activities. I want peace and quiet but I don’t want a five hour trip to go to a flea market.
Affordability. That’s easy. I’m coming from the northeast for Christ sakes!
A place to make new friends. You know………somewhere that, if you say hello, to someone you don’t know, it doesn’t prompt sour looks, at best and a 911 call at worse!
Someplace where I won’t hear phrases like “wellness”, “alternate life style”, “upwardly mobile” or “my bad”. Whoever came up with “my bad” should be thrown from a cliff and dashed on the rocks below. As his lifeless body finally comes to a stop, I want to look down, smile and mutter “my bad”
As it turned out, it proved to be an easier choice than I expected. I just let the other regions of the country eliminate themselves.
New England? Nope! Wrong! Beautiful Autumns……..great forests……..but…………they keep electing Kennedys as well as Mr. Ed (Kerry) and New England is the setting for most of Stephen King’s novels. Besides, I don’t see waking up in the morning after a 36 inch snowfall to be a retirement goal.
I visited Alaska once, but the thought that the only way out of town is by sea planes a little daunting. We won’t even talk about winters with no sunlight!
How about California! What? You kidding? “Here…..pee in this cup cause you’re gonna take a drug test!” Those people don’t breathe the same air we do! You can ask Kat, people get upset because you’re "invading their space" and then they growl at you! Beam me up Scottie…….there’s no intelligent life down here!” They also have the Governator. “I'll be back....raising your taxes." Besides, it would be my luck to move in and WHAM the big 9.0 on the Richter scale and I don’t want a home built on land subject to epileptic fits.
How about the Southwest? Are you nuts? HOT-HOT-HOT!!!!! It’s 120 out there! “But, Fred, it’s a dry heat!” BULLS*&^ it’s 100 damn 20 out there!
There’s always Florida, right? Traditional land of retirees. Perfect, right? Yea, ask my Aunt. She had enough and left. She didn’t have too much trouble moving though. The 3 hurricanes that came through her town, in one season, moved most of her stuff for her. Mostly onto her neighbors’ front yard.
So…she moved north……………..to the south. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the whole idea. I went to college in eastern Tennessee and liked it a lot. Mild winters, nice people, slower pace. Yea, it’s humid in the summer, but that’s what air conditioning is for. Wait! That was in the 70’s. It has to have changed, right? Well, it has, somewhat. There has been an influx of disposed, escaped prisoners of Stalag Northeast, like me.
Thank God they haven’t screwed this region up the way they have the Northeast. Please understand, Northeasterners are like seagulls. They usually find something nice, come swooping in, yell and squawk and scream, crap all over everything then fly away.
I think that hasn’t happened because of the true, life-long southerners. True southerners have come a long way in a relatively short time. This is a much different land from than that of the 50’s and 60’s. Their evolution is steady and remarkably quick, given the slower constitution of their lifestyle.
What I find truly wonderful is that all these changes have come about, without forgetting what came before, both the good and the bad. That’s about as different from the Northeast as you can get. We Northeast chowder heads view our past, greatly assisted by Northeastern Media, as if we just found snot on our fingers!...... We can’t get it off of us fast enough!
To a northerner (I really mean a Northeasterner) we can’t wait to forget our past. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker… (Our past) is something that shouldn’t be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. I’m not saying that the south is for everyone, but it’s for me and that’s where I decided to go. North Carolina, here I come.
Hey Gang. Don’t be afraid to search for your greener pastures. Greener pastures can exist for you if you choose the area based on your preferences, your likes and dislikes and what you, realistically want out of life.
NEXT: Packing, visiting and moving – “Mommy, are we there yet”