I am a writer but I do not come from a long line of writers. My father, for example, was a marine engineer and executive who always wondered when I would get a real job.
I do, however, come from a long line of wanderers. Billingtons seem genetically unable to remain in one place for long periods of time and so it is that after 65 years of living all over the United States I am now living in Spain.
Reus, Spain to be precise.
I won't be here for long. Well, that's not exactly true. I do plan to be in Reus at least for the next five or six years but sometime in June I expect to leave for New Zealand. My friend Dr. Elena Padrell has been offered a four-month temporary position there. She has invited me to come along as a companion for her somewhat rambunctious son Josep who, at 13, thinks he is quite capable of managing on his own. In this digital age he's probably right but I'm not one to turn down a chance to see new things and so I said I'd certainly tag along. Josep and I will have to return to Spain in late August so that he can start school on time. Elena will stay in New Zealand for another few weeks to fulfill her contract.
In the meantime, I'm adjusting to life among the Reusians. I moved here from Englewood, Florida in early May. Englewood is a wonderful beach town on Florida's West Coast. It's on Lemon Bay and separated from the Gulf of Mexico by a narrow strip of land known locally as Manasota Key. I worked there for nearly five years, first as the editor of the Englewood Sun newspaper and later as its publisher. I've told people many times that while working there was not the most exciting part of a journalism career that spanned nearly a half century, it was the most satisfying and, in that respect, the best. In my career I was fortunate enough to cover a lot of big stories: Hurricanes Andrew, Hugo, Gilbert, Katrina and Rita; Operation Desert Storm; Operation Just Cause; the Rwandan Civil War; the Love Canal environmental disaster and the crash of a United Airlines jetliner just outside Shanksville, Pa. on 9/11. I lived undercover with white-power extremists; investigated abuses of the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act by police who were literally stealing cars, boats, airplanes, homes and money from people without ever charging them with a crime and wrote a long series of articles shedding light on the shameful fact that Delaware once had the highest infant mortality rate in the United States. (Delaware now ranks about 25th... not wonderful but so much better than being 50th.)
Those were important stories to be sure. In Englewood, however, I was able to do what I have always thought newspapers should be about: Serving the community rather than standing aloof from it. At the Sun we not only covered the news of the day, we got involved in the day-to-day life of the community. We helped support a local food pantry, for example, helped to support the Lemon Bay High School theatrical department as well and even rang bells during the holiday season for the Salvation Army. We judged chili contests and Christmas parades and I once dyed my beard red, white and blue to enter the annual Pioneer Days beard contest. (I won... if you can imagine.) To promote breast cancer awareness month one year I even had my fingernails painted bright (really bright) pink. Those are not things I could have done in the days when I was running around the world chasing stories for much bigger newspapers.
The problem with living in Englewood, for me, is that my legs no longer work very well. For all of the wonderful things about Englewood, the one negative is that you pretty much have to drive to go grocery shopping, go to the beach or to a restaurant... the problem was that as my legs grew steadily worse it became harder and harder for me to drive safely. That not only forced me to retire before I planned to it also forced me to realize that I was going to have to move to a city that allowed me to walk to stores and restaurants and use a well-developed public transportation system to get elsewhere. I had been looking around for just such a city when I visited friends here in Reus in October, 2012. They suggested that this city of about 100,000 would be an ideal place for me. It's a very pretty city, they pointed out, and I have friends here that could make the transition from Florida to Spain easier. Reus is also close by the beach at Salou, not far from Barcelona, has plenty of things to see and do and, in short, is, in their opinion, the ideal place for an aging American to relocate.
I wasn't sure about that at first but the more I thought about it, the more I had to agree with them.
Add to that the fact that moving here also means that I get to spend a few months wandering around New Zealand for free and the decision to become a Reusian was all but a foregone conclusion.
So, here I am. Let's see what the future brings...
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