23 years in Dayton.....
Jun. 19th, 2012 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1It was 23 years ago next week that I was offered my first full-time job: a support contractor for what is now the 88th Communications Group at Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, OH. I was flown to Dayton for the interview, stayed overnight in a hotel, was offered the job, flew back, and started the following week. So I had a couple days to tie up any loose ends, pack the car (an '85 Chevy Citation), and drive down from Buffalo, NY to Dayton, OH.
In the span of that 23 years, a lot of the local landscape has changed. The first couple of weeks, I stayed at the Residence Inn near the Dayton Mall. Back then, route 741 south of the mall had a Shoney's restaurant, a go-kart track, Steve Kao's Chinese restaurant, and a Ground Round restaurant. All of them are gone now, replaced with other businesses. The Residence Inn has changed hands as well; it's now a Hawthorne Suites hotel.
Also in that span, I've lived in a second-floor one bedroom apartment in Kettering (3 years), a 2-bedroom townhouse in Centerville (6 years), and a 2-bedroom-and-loft condo in Washington Twp. (14 years and counting).
I sometimes think about how my life could have been different. If I had accepted another job elsewhere. If I had bought a house instead of a condo. If I had married someone else. If R and I would had stayed together. If we had more children. Would I have been better off financially, or worse?
Dayton isn't the greatest. It has its good points and bad points. But I've come to like it here. I like the reasonable cost of living. And I'm within a day's drive of most of the people and things I want to see. And my daughter is here too, and that keeps me anchored to this part of the country.
In the span of that 23 years, a lot of the local landscape has changed. The first couple of weeks, I stayed at the Residence Inn near the Dayton Mall. Back then, route 741 south of the mall had a Shoney's restaurant, a go-kart track, Steve Kao's Chinese restaurant, and a Ground Round restaurant. All of them are gone now, replaced with other businesses. The Residence Inn has changed hands as well; it's now a Hawthorne Suites hotel.
Also in that span, I've lived in a second-floor one bedroom apartment in Kettering (3 years), a 2-bedroom townhouse in Centerville (6 years), and a 2-bedroom-and-loft condo in Washington Twp. (14 years and counting).
I sometimes think about how my life could have been different. If I had accepted another job elsewhere. If I had bought a house instead of a condo. If I had married someone else. If R and I would had stayed together. If we had more children. Would I have been better off financially, or worse?
Dayton isn't the greatest. It has its good points and bad points. But I've come to like it here. I like the reasonable cost of living. And I'm within a day's drive of most of the people and things I want to see. And my daughter is here too, and that keeps me anchored to this part of the country.
