Not as much as I used to. About three years ago I finally took my teenage son and my foreign-born wife on the grand tour of the geography of my youth. (All throughout New York's Hudson Valley). It took us 2 days. I had already showed them bits and pieces, but this was the tour de force. Every neighborhood I ever lived in!
We even passed by the house that my mother claimed I was conceived in! LoL! My wife said "That's TMI! Kind of creepy, really!". What's funny is, I told my father that too...and he said in his thick German accent (my parents having been divorced since the early 70's) "Tell her I said et vas Pennsylvahnia!"
Dad's been gone since 2015, but now I wonder if that was a joke...because I have lived in P.A. myself since 2006/7. So maybe he meant that figuratively.
Anyhoo, ever since I was on my own and could drive I have made pilgrimages to places I have lived. I have lived all the way from northern NJ to Binghamton, NY. I have also attended school in roughly 8 or 9 school systems...although 7th-grade thru graduation was at the same one.
Ever since that one last grand tour I took with my wife and son a few years ago, culminating with a swim in an awesome swimming pool I used to frequent in the Catskills, I am basically done with these pilgrimages. Perhaps someday I will do it again, but I have no real plans to. I'm 54 now. Maybe when I'm 60? 64 even? Aside from the beautiful geography, I actually DON'T like NY. Don't like the Deep Blue influence. Don't like the bureaucracy, the unreasonable policies and unconstitutional laws and surveillance. Don't like the high cost of living nor the population density, nor the gated communities, nor the concrete jungle which is New York City.
After my son graduates from high school, we intend to move either deeper into the countryside of P.A., or maybe even another state altogether. We may even retire in my wife's South Americans country of origin. Then all three of us will make occasional pilgrimages back to our old life here in P.A.. Maybe even keep a small house or cabin in the country explicitly as a hub to return to once in awhile.
