150 Miles Due North
This was supposed to be my next post, but I was motivated to write something else the other day.
People on the Internet often ask where I live. Legitimate question since the person I am interacting with can be anywhere in the world with Internet access (note the caveat to the standard “anywhere in the world”). My response is “150 miles due north of Manhattan.” It’s also a question I am curious to ask. I have done a fair amount of travelling. My doctoral dissertation used a geographical theory about markets to explain the long-term political consequences of China’s economic reforms in the early 1980s. I even created a class called “The Politics of Geography.” Usually, I know something about where someone lives.
Getting back to the question, I always frame it as “where do you live” not “where are you from”? “From” in the latter question seems to mean “born and raised.” There is no short answer to that for me. I was born in Pennsylvania but never lived in the Commonwealth except for five months when I was 26 years old. I don’t consider myself “from Pennsylvania.” I spent a lot of time there growing up because my parents were born and raised at opposite ends of the Commonwealth. Vacations mostly meant visiting grandparents.
My parents moved from Washington DC (where they had met) across the Potomac River to Virginia (another Commonwealth) before I was born. My mother chose to stay with her parents in a town between Wilkes Barre and Scranton when she was ready to give birth to me. My father had a new job with IBM. My mother needed someone to take care of my older brother (two years three months at the time) and help her after my birth. Her six sisters and brother still lived at home. So, I was born in Pennsylvania. Two years later, my mother did the same thing when my other brother was ready to enter this world.
I was raised in Arlington VA and Lutherville MD. People may know about Arlington due to the National Cemetery where JFK, the Unknown Soldiers, and my stepfather are buried. Unless they know Maryland, Lutherville means nothing. To give folks a frame of reference they will know, my response to “where are you from” is “I was raised in the Baltimore-Washington area.”
That leads us back to my response to where I live now. If the person is familiar at all with Upstate New York, meaning knows there is more of New York than the NYC metropolitan area, I can say I live four miles southeast of Albany. Albany is the capital of the State of New York (sadly not a Commonwealth, but Massachusetts is a short drive away). People have heard of Albany. Albany New York, that is. Few people know about Albany Georgia or Albany Oregon unless they live in those states.
People who exclaim “I know Albany” may get the additional information that I live in the Town of East Greenbush. I have lived here since December 1996. Since March, however, my postal address has been Rensselaer NY, which is a small city between East Greenbush and Albany on the other side of the Hudson River. Apparently, Rensselaer is so small the US Postal Service decided to apply the zip code to adjoining areas in East Greenbush.
Rensselaer’s claim to fame these days is the newish Amtrak train station. Designated as Albany-Rensselaer, it is the sixth busiest Amtrak station in the country. Its proximity is a boon when I need to traverse those 150 miles south to Manhattan. The train ride is two hours and a half if no work is being done on the tracks, but always less than three hours. The run hugs the Hudson River, providing outstanding scenery. A bonus is a bald eagle that lives between Rensselaer and Hudson, the first stop. It usually can be seen flying over the river. Things like that add to the pleasure of living 150 miles due north.