About the picture
In recent days I’ve been traveling with my immediate family. As a surprise for my Mom, my two brothers and self showed up at her house in the south suburbs of Chicago and took a nostalgic road trip to Grandview and Burlington Iowa.
Anyone who has revisited their birthplace (in my case, Burlington) after an absence of 20 years or so knows about the rush of memories a trip like this brings forth. However I was surprised that despite being in midlife and with a deeply rooted life established a thousand miles or so away from said birthplace, the pull to come back and stay longer is nearly irresistable.
Who moves back to Iowa???!?
The picture of me that graces my blog was taken when I was about 18 months old and shows me aboard a merry-go-round at Perkins Park in Burlington. Oddly I found myself standing in that same park just three days ago, amazed that it hadn’t shrunken like so many other places from our pasts. The merry-go-round is gone, but the verdant expanse of hills and lovely trees and bridges are all there, just like I recalled them.
My brothers and I have spent the days since studying up on the town of Burlington, exploring the economic development scene, the price of real estate, major employers, and, in fact, the feasibility of investing in a shared property there that we could call our family retreat.
Without today’s internet technology, my all too brief sojourn there would be just a memory. Now it’s like a scab that I can’t leave alone! I mean, special memories deserve to remain buried. For us middle aged siblings trying to study the possibilities of some kind of modern life in that town is probably foolishness.
So is rooting for the Cubbies, which we also did two days ago at Wrigley. But that’s another (sad) story.
For now, as a Virtual Assistant, I find that any delightful place I visit becomes, however briefly, my imagined future home. Chronicling those musings here make them seem, fleetingly, like a plan.
Comment // October 8th, 2006 // 6:05 pm
I have lived in Burlington, Iowa, my entire life and my family for six generations before me. I wonder if I know you?
No matter . . . in Iowa, we’re a very friendly and helpful people. Who moves to Iowa? You’d be surprised! My best friend from high school has lived in California since her second year in college, and she and her husband keep track of all the real estate and are hoping to buy something here and move back when they retire. They can sell that expensive California real estate, pay off the mortgage, buy the most expensive house in town and have cash in the back. Or the couple that are featured in a Des Moines Register article this week who picked out Iowa to move their family (sight unseen may I add, after a ton of internet research) from where they were living in Alaska. Or the young family that’s currently being featured in a PR ad in the paper, a realtor from out of state who was looking for a great place to raise his family, so he moves his family to Iowa . . . only a few of the many, many people who know the best-kept secret of the United States (sshhh, Iowa is a GREAT place to live: quality of life, reasonable cost of living, educated and informed people, with great medical facilities, manageable traffic, and we’re in the middle of the country, so we can go to places like Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or Des Moines for the weekend in a 3 1/2 hour drive to most or 6 hours to Minneapolis—-all manageable for a visit and we’re still able to enjoy the quality of life here that the rest of the country only dreams about and wishes they had.
Who moves to Iowa? Only those who are smart enough to recognize what a great place this is but weren’t smart enough to stay here in the first place!
Comment // October 8th, 2006 // 6:38 pm
Hi There Shyarrow
I doubt we ever knew each other. I only lived in Burlington for my first five years and then later lived in Grandview for about 5 years. I did visit my grandparents there where they lived on S. Gunnison and first boyfriend was there, but wow! That’s all so many years distant. Mayb you can keep an eye out for a house for me!
Your family may have known my father who was from there. But we can carry this on privately off-blog. Thank you so much for writing!
ktcosmos