Is Retiring to Florida Selfish? by Austin Ruse

I didn’t stay. On the day of my college graduation, I packed up my car and drove straight through from the University of Missouri to Washington, D.C. I probably stopped for gas.

I left behind family and friends and roots. I bounced from D.C. to New York and back again. I returned to Virginia, where I was born, to set down roots with a wife but not until I was 47. At this remove, I ponder deeply the importance of staying put, of stability.

When I was 14, my family moved to what I consider my hometown of St. Charles, Missouri; and I recall that all the boys I met had known each other since kindergarten. There is a profound civilizational aspect to that, to lifelong connections and friendships and ballplaying. I was an outsider. There is a rootedness to people and to place. My brother and his family are back there. His children and their children are there, rooted among those people and that county. So is my sister and hers. And my mother is there. They all live within half a mile of each other. They’ve been in St. Charles for more than 50 years. ….

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