““Are you excited to be here in Italy?’’ I asked as we headed for the snack bar on base. This was her first air force assignment, and, as her sponsor, I had to make sure she ate before I dropped her off at the dormitory. ““Yeah,’’ she said, bouncin g a little in her seat like the teenager she was. ““You didn’t answer my question. Where are you from?''
I know where my roots are. My mom and dad were both born in the same South Jersey county. Mom ““helped’’ Dad with his high-school algebra homework. (She did it for him.) Unfortunately for them, her mom was their algebra teacher. That sort of thing happens when you’re from somewhere. Though my mother lives in California with her husband, she knows she’s from New Jersey. My father and his wife live in Las Vegas now, but he, too, knows he’s from New Jersey.
I’ve spent a total of three years in New Jersey. I can’t say I’m from there, because that would imply an intimate knowledge of the area. Someone else from New Jersey would know right away I’m an impostor.
Usually when I explain this, people give me a funny look and ask, ““Where were you born?’’ They insist that wherever you were born is where you’re from. I feel trapped, like they want to push me into a corner. I’m not from the state where I was bor n. Dad joined the air force after he left college. He was in technical school at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi when I was born. We lived in Mississippi for a few more months, then Dad got an assignment to Florida. My brother was born in Florida, but he’s not from Florida any more than I’m from Mississippi.
We moved to bases in Nevada and California. Then Dad changed air force jobs, and we went overseas. We lived in Greece and Portugal. Whenever we moved, Dad would send us to live with his mother in New Jersey until he got settled. The kids didn’t lik e me because I wasn’t from there. Adults always said, ““She’s lived in Greece and Portugal. You should be impressed.’’ Kids don’t take well to adults’ telling them they should be impressed. The kids reminded me that I wasn’t from New Jersey. Just like I wasn’t from Greece or Portugal.
When I was 11, we moved to Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany. I was a part of history there. The air force dedicated our school to two pilot heroes of the Berlin airlift, and my band class played at the ceremony. I felt connected to Germany. But there were American kids who were born there, who had been going to Halvorsen-Tunner school their whole lives. They knew I wasn’t from Germany.
Three years after arriving at Rhein-Main, we moved again, against my very loud protests. I would hate Italy, I promised with every fiber of my 14-year-old being. I would not like anything about it.
Italy lived up to my grim expectations, at first. Vicenza High School depressed me, with its dimly lit hallways and garish red lockers. As I despaired of ever making a true friend, Heather came into my life. Heather was as rootless as I. She made i t her mission to be my friend. She worked backstage in plays I acted in and always talked to me in computer class, even when I was rude and mean. I couldn’t help being friends with her. We’re still best friends, and Vicenza is our history. It’s as close as we can get to a place we’re from. Although I didn’t like Vicenza at first, I grew to love it. But there are always people who have lived there longer. Vicenza belongs to them. I can’t really say I’m from Vicenza.
Heather and I came up with an answer for people who asked, ““Where are you from?’’ Our addresses in Italy ended with APO NY because all the mail was processed through New York. We thought we finally had a clever way to respond. We could say we were from Apo, N.Y.
Not for long, though. The military postal system changed the addresses. The final line for Europe now reads APO AE for Area Europe. Well, I can’t say I’m from APO AE because that’s not the address I had growing up. Stumped again.
When I joined the air force at 18, my dad was stationed in Los Angeles. According to the government, your hometown is wherever you enlist. So for the 5i years I served, my records said I was from Los Angeles. I had lived in Los Angeles for about ei ght months, but for official purposes, it was my hometown.
The government sent me to South Korea for a year and the Azores for 15 months. My next assignment was Aviano Air Base in Italy. I was returning to the country that felt most like home. I worked with a talented air force news producer who loved Ital y as much as I did. We got married a year and a half after we met. John is from Iowa. He went to school two blocks from his home. His family has been there so long that they’re included in town-history books. When his folks asked me where I was from, I d idn’t have an answer.
Just like I didn’t have an answer for my air force co-worker. Her bright face waited expectantly for an answer. I had to make up something on the spot because I didn’t want to go through the speech again. ““I’m not from anywhere,’’ I said.
I’m not from anywhere. But that’s as much a part of my identity as a hometown is for other people. I am a person who is not from anywhere, and after 26 years of mumbling, I can finally admit it with pride. I am from nowhere, and I am from everywher e. That’s the way I like it.
title: “No Place Like Home” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-28” author: “Joann Applegate”
The Quadri family is the happy recipient of one of corporate America’s newest perks. In a bid to attract and retain employees in the tightest labor market in 30 years, a growing number of companies, from Bank of America to Aspen Ski Co., are starting programs to help workers pay for housing. The idea started in tony resorts like Aspen, where housing is scarce and expensive. But with the unemployment rate at 3.9 percent, the practice is spreading to heartland locations like Chicago, and to industries as varied as banking and higher education. “It’s crucial for us for both recruitment and retention,’’ says Jackie McClain, a vice chancellor for the 23-campus California State University system.
While the tight job market has forced employers into the real-estate business, the link between jobs and homes has historical roots. In the 1880s, George Pullman erected an entire neighborhood in Chicago to house his rail-car factory workers. A vaguely sinister air hung over many of these places, such as the Ford Motor Co. factory towns where the automaker once employed 100 investigators to monitor employees to ensure they didn’t drink too much and kept proper hygiene.
Today’s version of employer-sponsored shelter is more benevolent. King Harris, CEO of the Honeywell unit that owns System Sensor, started the home-loan program earlier this year to combat a steady loss of employees. More than a quarter of his workers were leaving each year, due in part to the dearth of available housing. With the loan program in place, the turnover rate has dropped to 14 percent. About 100 of the factory’s 550 assembly workers initially expressed interest in the deal: a $5,000 home loan forgiven if the employee stays for five years. Thirteen of the workers have been granted loans since March, with 25 more in the pipeline. Harris had few other options. “When you hit a wall and you can’t find enough people, what do you do?’’ he asks. “We had jobs we couldn’t fill.''
The need is equally pressing in other businesses. Aspen Ski Co. has put millions into buying and building affordable housing for its employees in the last few seasons. Otherwise, “we wouldn’t have all [the chairlifts] turning,’’ says Jim Laing, Aspen’s head of human resources. Feeling a similar pinch, Bank of America last year began offering employees, from tellers on up, as much as $5,000 in home-buying help. In Belmont, Calif., the police department will cover the entire down payment–up to $100,000–for any officer who buys a home in certain parts of town and stays with the force for 10 years. Some officers now drive an hour and a half to work, and no one wants them stuck on the other side of a fault line next time an earthquake hits. If the job market stays this tight, free Jacuzzis and wet bars can’t be too far behind.
