You ain’t from around here
Published 12:00 am Thursday, January 20, 2005
Anyone who has called me about there subscription or called the News Herald for one reason or another may have noticed I am not from the south.
The questions I always get are &uot;you are not from around here&uot;.
I proceed I am from Michigan. Question 2 is &uot;How did you get to Ahoskie, North Carolina?&uot;
Let me start from the beginning…
I was working at as a circulation manager in a small resort town in Manistee, Michigan.
Manistee is located on Lake Michigan.
I moved there in the springtime and experienced summer living in a little cottage on Portage Lake.
Every day after work, the golden retriever and I could be found with sand between our toes.
Life was great, until October.
The weather was colder on the lake but I could still put on a jacket and venture out.
Then it happened, the weather got colder and snow started to fly.
I have lived in Michigan all my life, so snow was the norm from November till May.
Lake effect snow though is something, though, I have never experienced.
Saturday would come and could not get out of my cottage.
I would bundle up and grab a shovel and dig a tunnel to my car.
The car would run for an hour after a short &uot;please don’t let my car get stuck&uot; I would take the long drive into town.
One day after stomping the foot of snow out of my boots, out of the blue a newspaper recruiter called me up.
I was to the point if she said she had a circulation job on the sun I would say great so when do I start.
She said she had the perfect job for me in Ahoskie, North Carolina.
I got out the atlas, it took a minute, but I found it.
A few weeks later, I loaded up everything I own in my Ford Focus en route for Ahoskie.
Everything I own consists of lots of clothes, shoes and a little black cat.
Traveling in the car for 20 hours with a cat is a column for another week.
My Dad mapped out the route from my sister’s house in Detroit to my apartment in Ahoskie.
He put post-it notes to mark every state I would go through and numbered them in order.
I only took one wrong turn in Washington, DC but somehow ended right back where I needed to be, stuck in traffic for hours.
It seemed like forever, but the cat and I got off 95, and headed toward Ahoskie.
It’s hard to believe, but in March I will have been here two years.
I have yet to acquire a taste for pork barbecue, but I do find myself saying &uot;ya’all&uot;.
I went from not knowing a soul to becoming active on the community and making friends.
The Roanoke Chowan area is a great place to live and I am so glad I found my way here.