Where I've Lived So Far
A prefactory note: this began as the text of an exercise I sometimes used in ESL classes to help students with the present perfect and simple past tenses, which are very confusing to most non-native speakers of English.Sorry. I'll get around to writing something more fascinating when--and if--I can.
Verbs and Times--A Chronology
I live near Richmond now, but I have lived in many different places.
I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. I lived in three different houses there.
When I was in high school, my family moved to Chagrin Falls, a small town outside of Cleveland.
A year later, we moved to Reading, Pennsylvania.
After living in Pennsylvania for a year, I spent three years in the army, most of it in Korea.
In the army, I also lived for a few months each in South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Massachusetts.
After I got out of the army, I went to college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for four years. I had three different addresses during those four years.
After that, I got married, and my wife and I lived in Lagos, Nigeria (West Africa) for two years.
Next we lived in Barcelona, Spain for about a year.
That was before moving to Lansing, Michigan. We lived in three places in Michigan.
After living in Michigan for five years, we moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, and stayed there for three years.
From North Carolina, we moved to Springfield, Missouri, and lived there another three years before coming to Richmond. We had two different addresses in Missouri.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, we also lived in Mexico for a while.
We moved to Richmond in 1976.
We rented a house the first year and then bought a house.
We lived in it until 2010.This is 2012, so we have lived in the Richmond area for 36 years now.
We have lived here since 36 years ago.
We are living here now.
Before we moved here, we lived in Missouri.
Before that, we lived in Michigan.
Since moving to Richmond, we have also lived temporarily in Iowa and China.
But we have been living here continuously since returning from China.
Altogether, then, I have lived at 29 different addresses, in ten states and five foreign countries--so far.
All right, then, where am I?
Here, yes. Here and now, too? I guess that depends on what
"now" means to you.
I like to think I'm relatively enlightened, which would put me in the modern era. But I've lived in and--to some extent--assimilated so many different cultures, I'm not just a native of any one specific where. Or is that one when?
Ho-hum. Sorry, that's all for now.