Mid year of first grade my mother showed up one afternoon and took me out of school.  It was moving day.  My parents swear that they had explained to me that we were moving, but I don't recall ever having any conversations about it.  I remember all of the animation prior to that day; looking at the house we were to move to, going to the realtor's office, but no one ever actually told me what was happening.  I didn't understand why I got picked up that day, but I know I was happy to get out of school early.  The moving itself was fun.  What I remember most was the men having trouble moving the big stuff on to the Ryder Truck and dropping the refrigerator. 

Our new house was in the town of Westmoreland, on East Carter Rd.  It was a 3 bedroom Ranch with an attached garage, painted white with green trim and sat on 1 whole acre of land. We were now living about 10 minutes from the base and all of my friends. 

Westmoreland is a one horse town (or one traffic light in our case).  When we first arrived here in 1980, it seemed much like a town dangerously close to being out populated by it's number of cattle.  I'm sure that was not the case, however I was now living in a place where you could hear the peepers at night as if they were in your bedroom and on a still evening you could drift off to slumber to the lullaby of Heifers lowing. 

In my remembrance Westmoreland was a complaisant small town.  A group of hard working, middle class folks with all the civility that a country town could offer.  A town occupied by people flagrant with humility towards one another.  A town also, to my disadvantage, that was filled with exaggerated families... people all rooted to one another by means of several large family trees.  As the years pass by, this town has grown a great deal.  The population is more diverse and abstract in character, yet still as inviting as it was 20 years ago.  These days the farmers have tapered out quite a bit.  Their children decided on lives other then the labored ones in which they were raised.  This has forced farmers as they age to sell off acreage to eager young families with a desire to build their own home. For the most part they are good people moving in that care for themselves as well as their neighbors.

We moved into our new home the day before Thanksgiving.  To keep with the Pilgrim tradition of the holiday we had a grand feast that year with our adopted family surrounding us.  We could have made it easier on everyone and congregated at someone else's house, but to make it more exciting we gathered at our new abode and ate our dinner atop card board boxes. 

My new room was much larger then the ones in base housing and the hallway was very long (especially to a 6 year old.)  That first night in our new house, I fell asleep with a cookie in my hand.  Not much has changed .