California Dreaming

I have always enjoyed going to California, but I’m always happy to come back home to Chicago. I lived in California for three years while I served in the United States Marine Corps. I was tempted to move to California after my honorable discharge, but something didn’t feel right. The people were friendly. The weather was nice.

However, I was also discouraged by the natural disasters: droughts, floods, fires, and earthquakes. Not to mention all the serial killers. But those were the least of my concerns. I just didn’t feel like I fit in, but I wasn’t sure why. So I decided to come back home to Chicago.

My sister and my sister-in-law now live in southern California. Everytime I visit them, they try to convince me to live in California. They tell me that I would love living in California. I remind them that I had already lived in California for three years when I was in the Marines.

I wondered what it was that I didn’t like about California. I finally figured it out. No one had any family out there. And everyone I met was from somewhere else in the U.S. I think that’s why my sister and sister-in-law always try to entice us to move there. They have no family there.

When I lived in California, 1978-1981, No one I knew had family there. I went to a few parties and no had any family members present. They were from somewhere else and they moved there on their own. Most people moved because they like the moderate weather. Me? I liked the weather, too, but I had no complaints about the hot Chicago summers or the freezing cold Chicago winters. I was fully acclimated to living in Chicago.

Thinking back, what I really loved about Chicago was the fact that we are so family oriented. In high school, I would visit my friends and I would get to meet some, if not all, of their family. Totally different from California. I like going to downtown Chicago hearing someone from my past calling my name. If I go to a party, many times I will meet friends and maybe their parents or even grandparents. I like being surrounded by people I know even I don’t see them often.

I think that’s why I felt like I didn’t belong in California. No one really had a long-established connection there. Maybe I’m just too parochial. So when I go to California, I go visit the people I know there. I go to a party or two, but there is only one generation of each guest. No one has family roots there. At least, not the people I meet there.

After all these years, I realize that I feel right at home in Chicago!