I gotta have my orange juice.

A history of the places I have lived.

I was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Three weeks after I was born my family moved to Dover, Delaware, where the first of my four younger siblings was born.

From Delaware we moved to Connecticut, where my Dad had a lengthy train ride to work; West Virginia; and Richmond, Virginia.

We spent three years in Edmond, Oklahoma. Dad worked in Oklahoma City, where we also went to church (in a building that used to be an airplane hangar). While we lived there, Edmond was the site of one of the first post office shootings, and also suffered from a direct tornado hit. We were unaffected by both, though some people in our church were affected by each. In Edmond, I went to public school through second grade, and then began home school. I remember the space shuttle Challenger disaster, and I remember an early morning trip to the park with Dad to watch Halley’s comet.

From Edmond we moved to Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. Dad commuted to work in New Brunswick, and we went to church in Edison. We lived there only nine months; I was the only member of our family to have a birthday in New Jersey. I remember watching the unveiling of the restored Statue of Liberty while we lived in New Jersey.

We spent three years in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Life in Goldsboro was very laid back and fun, at least for a boy of age 10-12 living in a large, old house.

Growing up, the place we lived the longest was Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, which was close enough to the Hershey’s chocolate factories that we could occasionally smell chocolate in the air, if the wind was just right. Our church moved from a fire hall in Hummelstown to a rented space above a 7-Eleven store, then to the Harrisburg Youth for Christ building (a large warehouse), and finally to a hotel (they now meet in a school).

I lived in Hummelstown for about six years before going to school at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, where I met my wife. My family continued to live in Hummelstown for another eight years after I left for college. Despite living so close, I never actually visited Hersheypark until just after I graduated from college.

My wife and I were married soon after graduation, and moved to an apartment in Durham, North Carolina (we lived in Durham although we were served by the Chapel Hill post office; in the preceding link our apartment complex is a little bit farther down Farrington Rd. than the marker indicates).

After a year in North Carolina, we bought a house in Apex, where we lived from 2001 to early 2006. We chose Apex because it is close to our church. We were able to walk to church when the weather was nice!

In early 2006 we sold our home in Apex and moved to Holly Springs.