One Example of Irony

I’ve mentioned on my blog before that I lived in Louisiana for two years. Plus,I have never made a secret of the fact that I really, really DISLIKED living there. I wasn’t there by choice. The US Army said GO and we went.

We were stationed at Ft. Polk. The post is on the western side of the state, eight miles from the Texas state line, and about the halfway point from Lake Charles to Shreveport. In other words, about 20 miles from where Moses lost his sandals.

The area surrounding Ft. Polk was the polar opposite from anywhere I had ever lived before. Not only was this part of Louisiana extremely rural, it was dirt poor and at times downright backwards. Also, it was the only Parish in the state that wasn’t predominately Catholic. That fact took away my last hope for anything familiar for me.

We moved into post housing on my 26th birthday. We were assigned a roomy townhouse with a large yard. Unfortunately, water poured in through our kitchen roof whenever it rained. The Army did it’s best to help subsidized the local economy by using the civilian workforce. Our townhouse was a great example of that relationship.

A little wide spot in the road called Leesville was the local town. With the exception of Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, and Sonic… everything closed at 5 p.m. Very few businesses were open on Saturdays. Those that were open on Saturday closed at noon and then were closed on Monday.

Since the Commissary (military grocery store) was staffed by local civilians, it followed the local business hours too. Half days on Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday. I had just come from a post where the Commissary was open seven days a week. But here’s the real kicker… if Monday happened to be a holiday such as Labor Day, then the Commissary is also closed on Tuesday! I learned that rule the hard way. On Fridays I always made sure that I had enough milk, bread, eggs, fruit & veggies to make it through to Wednesday.

While living in Lousy-ana, someone asked me if I could go anywhere on vacation, where would I go? Without hesitating I answered, Las Vegas. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m NOT a party girl and definitely NOT a gambler. So this answer seemed unusual. When asked why? I said wanted to go to Las Vegas because everything was open 24 hours.

I was so excited to move to the west coast of Florida and civilization. The first week we lived here I went to Publix (the local grocery store) on Monday just because I could. Over the past 13 years I’ve witnessed this casual vacation and retirement town grow by almost 20%. Like every other local I got excited when a new retailer moved in and then complained about the tourist season traffic.

We don’t want for anything here. If we can think of it, we can find it. Restaurants, shopping, museums, theaters, professional sports, activities, and diversity abound.

I should be happy, right? Overall, yes, I am. But in the past year I’ve noticed that I want to get farther away from the crowds. I joke about running away to Montana for a year for some peace and quiet. When my Sweetie asks where I would like to retire I answer, someplace not so developed. Kinda ironic, isn’t it?

What’s changed?
Has my lifestyle changed?
Have my priorities changed?
Is it a case of the grass is greener?
Have you ever lived someplace that you really didn’t like?