Science tells us that the years between birth and age 10 are formative. That is to say that these are the years when certain cultural norms become cast in stone. The next most important are from 10 to early adulthood. This does not mean we can’t change or evolve.
This has a particular bearing on my history. Being precocious, I became deeply entwined with the counter-culture movement by the time I was nine. My family was non-conformist to begin with. All I wanted to do was go to California and turn on, tune in, and drop out.
Eventually I made it. I spent most of what would have been my high-school years running the streets of Berkeley. I got a GED. Then batted at the local JC with no great conviction.
In my early 40s I came to realize that as much as I eschewed western culture, I was and would always be a product of it. I went back to school with a vengeance and took every class on civilization, history, art history, and science history that I could. I ended up with a BA in liberal studies.
But my earliest memories are of a different place. When asked about my “home town” I find it difficult to answer. I was born in the Deep South but my people were only there on business and we were gone by the time I was three. I have only a few vague memories of that place.
We were in Binghamton from age three through ten. And my memories of that place and time are as real as yesterday.
Then Bedford Village, then New York City, where I haunted the lower east side and avoided my uptown relatives as much as possible. Then Berkeley at 15.
I can’t answer which is THE hometown. Because they all imprinted my mind in different ways.
But I can still walk the rooms and hallways of the house in Binghamton. A 2400 square foot Victorian, already 80 years old in 1960. A wraparound porch. A huge attic and finished basement.
I remember the way it smelled in spring and how the water of the mighty Susquehanna felt on my toes. I remember riding my bike first thing on a summer morning.
And soon I will find myself 150 miles from there. I will live in a midsized city, but culturally very close to where I began.
Louisiana, New York, Northern California, New Mexico. And now, a return.
My late friend, Lesley, once surprised me by saying that she considered me to be a New Yorker no matter that I spent most of my life in California. She said it became clear the minute I opened my mouth. And not because of a Brooklyn accent.
Maybe she was right. Thomas Wolfe famously said that you can never go home again. But it may be more true that you can never really leave your home behind.
I have to say that when I first met you at Crescent’s Fearless class in Manhattan in 2015, I thought you were a native New Yorker.