August 20, 1989.... That's the day I arrived in Southwestern Illinois. I got into Highland, Illinois about sunset, after an 800+ mile drive from Washington DC area. With some essentials in the back of my Jeep pickup truck. I started a new job the next day (8/21), living out of hotels for the next 2 months, (until our house was finished my wife and kids joined me).
This was a watershed moment for me/us. At the time, I had only been west of Ohio a couple of times, on business trips to Denver CO and Oakland CA. Other than my interview, and a house hunting trip, I had never been to the St. Louis area, or any place remotely mid-west. I was moving from an engineering position with the Power Company in Washington DC to an Application Engineering role with a relay manufacturer. From a townhouse 1 mile outside the DC beltway to a house in the Southern Illinois suburbs.
Thirty years later, We're still in that house, although I've changed jobs a couple of times. And, as of October 2018, I've lived here longer than all the previous placed combined (central West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, central North Carolina, Maryland suburbs of DC). It's been a good place for us, and we've passed on several opportunities to leave through the years.
Of course, there's no way to know what my life would look like if I hadn't taken the chance way back then, nor does it matter. But I'm reminded of George Bush's autobiography "Decision Points", reflecting back on the key
