Sunday December 13, 2015
Sunny with rain likely later today 59°F/15°C in Rancho Santa Margarita
Howdy, Pardner!
On the road again! It’s time to get on the road, again! Good ol’ Willie Nelson. And every few years,
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| Two Reasons to Move! |
Right after I got back from my latest trip to Rome in September, I accepted Dana’s invitation to spend the holidays with the family in Texas, so I used a bunch of frequent flyer points and booked a roundtrip on Jet Blue from Long Beach to Austin for me and Lola. (Can’t leave your poodle in a kennel over Christmas, for cryin’ out loud). My original plan was to arrive a few days before Christmas and stay through my birthday in January (My 75th!) After that, I would come back to California and plan my next trip to Rome and the other side of the family. While I was there, I would check things out for a possible move for me and Lola. And, you know how it works with the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men? They change. So, now, when I board the flight this Friday, that’s it! I will get to see the entire State of California in my rear view mirror, not just Stockton (which is a city best viewed in a rear-view mirror).
When the kids first announced late last year that they were pulling up stakes and moving to Austin, Texas, I had the same feeling the guy in that old Borscht Belt joke about the guy who watches his mother-in-law drive off the cliff in his new Cadillac. Very mixed emotions! Dana and Jason would be moving their family from a one-thousand-square-foot cottage into a 4,000 square foot McMansion in an Austin suburb. They both would have better jobs. The kids’ schools were not testing centers for the latest education brainstorm. What’s more the overall cost of living is lower than California’s. Jeez! Two-dollar-a-gallon gasoline!? Fuhgeddaboudit!
As for me, while the economic differences between California and Texas are very appealing to me since I’m on a retirement income and the politically primeval in Washington, DC want to rob me of my hard-earned Social Security and Medicare and take away all the other public services that us seniors depend on for our very existence, I am approaching my move with some trepidation. But, I will quickly register to vote in Texas. So maybe a can act as a small counterweight. And, I definitely don’t like the idea of having to change Senators or Governors either. I mean, like, Ted Cruz for Dianne Feinstein or a Rick Perry Clone for Jerry Brown? Fuhgeddaboudit! I will say that the Texans I’ve dealt with so far just to make arrangements for the move and my new home have been very warm, friendly and helpful. Being the optimist that I basically am, I have high hopes. And, yes, some of my very best friends over many years are Texans. Dana has given me a “heads-up” about some hazards in Texas that might, just might cause problems for my poodle, Lola. After all, in California, we don’t have fire ants, too many tornadoes, rattlesnakes that eat alligators, or killer Armadillos. So we will obviously have to do some adjusting.
My blogging started with some Facebook postings about three years ago when I went to Italy to visit my son in Rome as I started my comeback from the rubble of my second divorce along with some fairly serious health issues. Facebook led to Blogspot, led to the original Rome Diary, and to Lost Musket Journal on my return to the states. Along the way, I dug back into my research about my dad’s Navy career in World War 2 and the fun and games he had playing Whack-a-Mole with the U 667, and started working on a book which I hope to have in publication early in 2016. So, I plan to continue writing. The blog will continue, although the name will change. Los Trabucos or The Muskets have uniquely California origins, so a change of scene to Texas will dictate a title change. But, the blog and Facebook and all my other social media output will still lead you to www.mikebotula.com the website where I preside as Mastermind. And, I’ll gradually be updating everybody on my whereabouts. This is but the initial release. News services call a note like this an Advisory!
I mentioned at the top that I am leaving California after a nearly 50 year stay. If you do the math…..I was 25 when Donna and I moved here from Arizona. She was from Illinois originally. I am a native New Yorker – Manhattan to be precise. After I turned 50, I turned to my wife one day and remarked, its official! I’ve lived in California longer than I was alive. So, I guess that makes me a California native! Now, lots of Californians will say that after they’ve lived there a long time. A little differently, maybe, but after a while, you become more of a Californian than whatever you were before: Puerto Rican, Polish, New Yorker, Pennsyltuckian, and Republican, whatever. California is a smaller scale reflection of America as a whole. Nearly every Californian now in the state came from somewhere else. My grandparents came from Central Europe. Their progeny scattered from Pennsylvania to the far corners of the U.S. Some of us Botula’s wound up in California. Dana’s family is now in Texas and I’m right behind them. Mike has found a new life in Rome, just a two hour flight from where his great-grandfather was born. The Earth revolves at a pretty good speed. If you jump high enough in your lifetime, you never know where you will come back down to Terra Firma. My next leap will take me across three states. When I land, I will be in Austin, Texas. And, who knows where the four winds will take me after that.
Ciao!
MikeBo
PS: Check me out on Facebook, Google+ www.mikebotula.com or MikeBotula.blogspot.com
© By Mike Botula 2015
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