When we moved here in December 1990 (Lloyd) and March 1991 (me) we had been a couple for only about a year. We had lived together for about half a year. And we wouldn’t marry for nearly 3 more years.

We didn’t move to Raleigh, even though that was our address. We moved to the Research Triangle, RTP, or, maybe, the Triangle. Of the latter, Raleigh was only a faded, sleepy, outer limit. A geometric boundary. A Euclidean roommate and a corner that turned back upon itself and pointed to the more fabulous co-angles of Durham and Chapel Hill. Now Raleigh is a star in its own right. And the surrounding areas (Knightdale, Garner, even Johnston county) that once seemed like distant outposts have melded more completely into the greater Raleigh footprint.

In this area we’ve stayed the homes of relatives three times, lived in two apartments, owned four houses, and rented one lot in a mobile home community. We briefly moved to another country on another continent and returned to the area.

When we first came to Raleigh -to North Carolina- I was reluctant. I couldn’t believe I was moving to the state that repeatedly elected Jesse Helmes to the US congress. I clipped articles from the News & Observer that represented the area for me. One was about an alligator that tried to cross the road but grew sleepy on the warm pavement and had to be removed by state officials, never dreaming that I would later work for the WRC for 12 years. Another was about a moonshine still that had been discovered and destroyed by state officials, again, never considering that I would end my working years with the DPS, a department that included the ALE.

When we moved here I was under 30. I had spent over half my life, to that point, living in a small town. I had lived in and around Philadelphia and experienced big city life for, what I considered, an unacceptably short period of time. I had lived in Center City for a couple of years and in a town connected to Center City by the speed line for about 8 months. I was very skeptical of this sleepy, bedroom community. The only bar scene was Hillsborough street across from and very influenced by NCSU. We went to a bar there to hear some “alternative” music, the current trend. We asked the bartender where people our age, young professionals, went to hear this kind of music. He pointed to the end of the bar, away from the crowd of undergrads, to a handful of rather miserable looking 30 somethings enduring the crowd of pitcher-swilling partiers in order to hear some music that wasn’t Rush singing Tom Sawyer.

And it was true: Every time I turned the radio to a non-country station they were playing, were about to play, or had just played Rush. I like Geddy Lee as much as the next person but come on. When the most popular rock station in the area changed to a country format it celebrated by – and I swear I’m not making this up – playing Garth brooks for 24 hours straight. And, remember, this was years before the first iPod (or Zune, in my case) was available for you to curate your own music collection. So, if you didn’t like what the commercial stations had to offer, you had to listen to tapes, CDs, or NPR. In fact, local radio in Raleigh in the early 90s is the reason I permanently turned to NPR as my audio driving companion, at least until I could carry a whole music library in my pocket. I listened to the news programs out of UNC-CH and the jazz programs from Shaw University. As unlikely as it is to be true, I blame my move to Raleigh, rather than the natural progression of adulthood, for separating me from the latest trends in music.

I’m going to miss the restaurant scene in Raleigh. After enduring the dismal restaurant offerings for so many years I still can’t believe how vibrant, eclectic, varied, and competent the restaurant offerings now are, even after the pandemic. Within weeks of my moving here, Lloyd and I decided to spend a Saturday walking around downtown Raleigh and seeing what our new city had to offer. After all, the whole of Fayetteville street, from the State Capitol to Memorial Auditorium was a pedestrian mall. So downtown must have bars and restaurants we can wander between and into, right? Wrong! After walking the entire length of the pedestrian mall we finally bought lunch in the only place we found open: the hot dog counter at Woolworth’s. There was no place to sit down so we ate our hot dogs walking the desultory, deserted streets. I was disheartened that this was my new home town.

Am I a southerner? I have lived about half my life in the south. I have enough of an accent that I have been mistaken for a native North Carolinian – not one from Kinston or anything but a native nonetheless. When I first visited Raleigh- a month after Lloyd moved here and two months before I followed him- a group of civil war re-enactors was acting out a battle on the grounds of the state Capitol building. It hadn’t been long since Jesse Helmes’ campaign had mailed leaflets to Black neighborhoods threatening jail if they voted. Looking for an apartment, I called a number from the classifieds but declined to leave a message after the answering machine extolled that “the South will rise again” while Dixie played in the background. Manufacturing plants were still thriving by taking advantage of a lack of union and general safety oversight- the Hamlet chicken plant fire, mere months after I arrived, was exacerbated when the fire exit doors were locked to prevent theft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_chicken_processing_plant_fire for further, starker info on the role of racism, taking advantage of poor, Black women, and lax industrial standards). Yes, when I first moved here, I would have been horrified to be considered a southerner. I’m a little more comfortable with what it means to be a southerner…now.