Boomerang

As of today, I have lived in Daytona for 26 years. Ironic since my plans were to be here 3 months. After finishing college and an Internship, I packed my 1976 beat up Subaru with all I owned and drove to Daytona with only $500 and a college degree. I had no job and knew one person. My back window held a full page ad for the Virgin Islands ripped from a magazine that stated “It’s not just what you do, it’s where you do it.” My professors had begged me to consider jobs with the Kansas City Star and then in 5 years or so, try to get a transfer to a coastal town. At 23 my brain didn’t work that way. So January 17, 1984, in a snow storm that yielded 40 degrees below wind chill factor, I left Manhattan, Kansas and Kansas State University to the vast unknown. My old car laden with all my earthly possessions could only reach 45 miles per hour until Arkansas, where the weather was warmer.

Now, a lifetime later I am doing the same thing, leaving the familiar to an even bigger vast unknown.